Selective separation of microalgae cells using inertial microfluidics

Maira S Syed; Mehdi Rafeie; Dries Vandamme; Mohsen Asadnia; Rita Henderson; Robert A Taylor; Majid E Warkiani

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.065

Selective separation of microalgae cells using inertial microfluidics

Bioresour Technol. 2018 Mar:252:91-99. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.065. Epub 2017 Dec 21.

Authors

Maira S Syed¹, Mehdi Rafeie², Dries Vandamme³, Mohsen Asadnia⁴, Rita Henderson⁵, Robert A Taylor⁶, Majid E Warkiani⁷

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia; Biomass Lab, School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia. Electronic address: maira.syed@student.unsw.edu.au.
² School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia.
³ Biomass Lab, School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia; Laboratory for Aquatic Biology, KU Leuven, Campus Kulak, Belgium.
⁴ Department of Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
⁵ Biomass Lab, School of Chemical Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia.
⁶ School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia; School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia.
⁷ School of Biomedical Engineering, University of Technology Sydney, Australia; Center for Health Technologies, University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: majid.warkiani@uts.edu.au.

PMID: 29306136
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.065

Abstract

Microalgae represent the most promising new source of biomass for the world's growing demands. However, the biomass productivity and quality is significantly decreased by the presence of bacteria or other invading microalgae species in the cultures. We therefore report a low-cost spiral-microchannel that can effectively separate and purify Tetraselmis suecica (lipid-rich microalgae) cultures from Phaeodactylum tricornutum (invasive diatom). Fluorescent polystyrene-microbeads of 6 μm and 10 μm diameters were first used as surrogate particles to optimize the microchannel design by mimicking the microalgae cell behaviour. Using the optimum flowrate, up to 95% of the P. tricornutum cells were separated from the culture without affecting the cell viability. This study shows, for the first time, the potential of inertial microfluidics to sort microalgae species with minimal size difference. Additionally, this approach can also be applied as a pre-sorting technique for water quality analysis.

Keywords: Phaeodactylum tricornutum; Selective separation; Spiral microchannel; Tetraselmis suecica.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Chlorophyta
Diatoms
Microalgae*
Microfluidics*