Biodiesel consists of fatty acid methyl esters that are produced by transesterification of biologically-derived lipids. The quality of biodiesel is considerably affected by the composition of fatty acids. Microalgae have been identified as a promising feedstock for biodiesel production because of the high intracellular lipid/fatty acid content. Many parameters such as light, CO2, nutrients, salinity, pH and temperature have been scrutinized to increase the microalgal growth and fatty acid content. The impacts of plant and animal hormones on the microalga growth and its biochemical composition, especially the fatty acid content have not been investigated. In this research work, effect of two different classes of phytohormones including auxin and cytokinin on the growth and fatty acid profile of the microalga Senedesmus obliquus was investigated. The microalga growth increased with increasing concentration of phytohormones from 10-6 to 10-3 M. At the endpoint of experiment (6 day), 10-3 M of auxin supported the maximum growth with 17.7�106 cells/mL and total fatty acid of 97.7 mg/g-DCW, enhancing the growth by 1.9 folds compared to control (9.5�106 cells/mL). While 10-3 M of cytokinin demonstrated a 2.5 folds higher growth with 23.5�106 cells/mL and a total fatty acid of 100.3 mg/g-DCW. Under all experimental conditions (0-10-3 M), for both phytohormones, palmitic acid (C16:0), oleic acid (C18:1n9c), ?-linolenic acid (C18:3n6) and a-linolenic acid (C18:3n3) were the major forms. The fatty acids C18:3n6 (130 and 91%) and C18:3n3 (20 and 86%) were primarily induced under the influence of auxin and cytokinin, respectively. The current investigation demonstrated that the auxin and cytokinin could accelerate the microalgal growth and induce the quality and quantity of fatty acid content for microalgal biodiesel production.

Enhancement of the microalgal growth and fatty acid content under the influence of phytohormones for biodiesel production

248th National Meeting (2014)

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