Cultivation of diatom Pinnularia saprophila for lipid production: A comparison of methods for harvesting the lipid from the cells

The present study underlines the application of centrifugal force and pulse electric field techniques along with its comparison to resonance energy to harvest lipid from a fixed number of Pinnularia saprophila cells. Sulpho phospho vanillin method for lipid, and analysis of cells via microscopy was done. It was found that a centrifugal force of 11110xg for 15 min allowed similar to 3.39% lipid to ooze out with 2.5% cell destruction. Alternatively, when same numbers of diatom cells were subjected to pulse electric field at 110 kV/27 mA for 10 mu s, maximum lipid production of 2.86% with 21.19% cell death was observed. It was perceived that diatom cells in a micro resonating micro fluidic chamber for 20 min harvested 4.4% of lipid with 11.16% of cell death. However, micro fluidic device needs to be scaled up using cheaper material instead of silicon wafer, to be an efficient technique to milk lipid from diatoms.

Automated summary

The study compared the effectiveness of centrifugal force and pulse electric field techniques for harvesting lipid from Pinnularia saprophila cells with resonance energy. While both techniques showed higher lipid production, they also resulted in varying levels of cell destruction. The micro resonating micro fluidic chamber showed promising results in lipid extraction from diatoms but requires scaling up with cheaper materials for efficiency.