The effect of culture salinity on the harvesting of microalgae biomass using pilot-scale tangential-flow-filter membrane

Probir Das; Mahmoud Thaher; Shoyeb Khan; Mohammad AbdulQuadir; Hareb Al-Jabri

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2019.122057

The effect of culture salinity on the harvesting of microalgae biomass using pilot-scale tangential-flow-filter membrane

Bioresour Technol. 2019 Dec:293:122057. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2019.122057. Epub 2019 Aug 24.

Authors

Probir Das¹, Mahmoud Thaher², Shoyeb Khan², Mohammad AbdulQuadir², Hareb Al-Jabri²

Affiliations

¹ Algal Technology Program, Center for Sustainable Development, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University, Qatar. Electronic address: probir.das@qu.edu.qa.
² Algal Technology Program, Center for Sustainable Development, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University, Qatar.

PMID: 31491653
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2019.122057

Abstract

In this study, the effect of culture salinity (4-6% NaCl) on the harvesting of two microalgal strains (i.e., Picochlorum sp., and Tetraselmis sp.) was investigated using pilot-scale TFF membranes. The cultures of these two strains were collected from their respective continuous cultivation in 2, 25,000 L raceway ponds. For both strains, an increase in culture salinity aggravated the membrane fouling and hence negatively influenced the permeate flux rate, biomass concentrating factor, and energy requirement in biomass harvesting. For the TFF membranes, an increase in 1% NaCl salinity, the volume of processed permeate reduced by 30-44 %, the energy consumption per unit volume of permeate increased by 3-63%, and the biomass concentrating factor reduced by 47-61%.

Keywords: Culture salinity; Membrane fouling; Microalgae harvesting; Pilot scale; Tangential flow filtration.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Chlorophyta*
Microalgae*
Ponds
Salinity