Stepwise-incremental physicochemical factors induced acclimation and tolerance in oleaginous microalgae to crucial outdoor stresses and improved properties as biodiesel feedstocks

Stress-tolerant oleaginous microalgae are promising for economical outdoor cultivation and biofuel production. This study aimed to induce acclimation and adaptive evolution of oleaginous Scenedesmus sp. SPP to tolerate crucial outdoor stresses by stepwise increasing of physicochemical factors: salinity, light intensity and temperature. The acclimatized strains showed better growth and accumulated 20?30% higher contents of lipids and chlorophylls. The adaptive-evolved strain showed greater tolerance to culture stresses by giving > 2-fold higher biomass under nitrogen rich and accumulating > 1.5-fold higher lipid content under nitrogen starvation compared to the parental strain. Moreover, stepwise increasing of multi-stresses successfully induced the multi tolerance of the adaptive-evolved strain and gave the highest lipid content of 44.1 ? 1.5%. The extracted lipids from acclimatized/evolved strains show improved prospect fuel properties in terms of high cetane number and oxidative stability. These results show the effectiveness of stepwise-incremental physicochemical factors to intensify potential of microalgae for outdoor cultivation and as biodiesel feedstocks.

Automated summary

By incrementally adjusting physicochemical factors, oleaginous microalgae showed improved growth, higher lipid and chlorophyll content, and enhanced tolerance to various culture stresses. This strategy successfully induced multi-tolerance and achieved the highest lipid content, demonstrating the potential for outdoor cultivation and biodiesel production.