Harvesting the biomass of single-celled microalga Chlorella sp. with Electro-Coagulation-Flotation method

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

University of guilan

Abstract

Microalgae are rich in inorganic compounds and can grow rapidly, thereby producing valuable byproducts in various fields, such as pharmaceutical and food industrials. At the end of the growth phase of the microalgae, one of the problems that exist in harvesting the biomass is lack of a suitable machine for the isolation of microalgae from culture with low-cost is not available. In this study, the Electro-coagulation- flotation method was used to harvest Chlorella sp. from the culture medium, the impact of three parameters, current, electrolytes and duration of the process was evaluated for its efficiency. The results show that the run time has the greatest impact in harvesting, so that the highest recovery efficiency was attained in the longest time. On the other hand the increase in currency speeds up the clotting and harvesting of the microalgae; but the energy consumption is high. The highest efficiency of biomass harvesting was obtained 88.3 % with a currency of 16 mA.cm-2 and duration of 30 minutes.

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