Journal
FRONTIERS IN ENERGY RESEARCH
Volume -, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fenrg.2015.00030
Keywords
Spirulina platensis; protein isolate; high-pressure homogenization; response surface methodology; residual biomass; biofuel feedstock
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Funding
- Department of Defense ARO [W911NF-11-1-0218]
- Department of Energy [DE-FG02-93ER20097]
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The current work reports protein extraction from Spirulina platensis cyanobacterial biomass in order to simultaneously generate a potential co-product and a biofuel feed-stock with reduced nitrogen content. S. platensis cells were subjected to cell disruption by high-pressure homogenization and subsequent protein isolation by solubilization at alkaline pH followed by precipitation at acidic pH. Response surface methodology was used to optimize the process parameters - pH, extraction (solubilization/precipitation) time and biomass concentration for obtaining maximum protein yield. The optimized process conditions were found to be pH 11.38, solubilization time of 35 min and biomass concentration of 3.6% (w/w) solids for the solubilization step, and pH 4.01 and precipitation time of 60 min for the precipitation step. At the optimized conditions, a high protein yield of 60.7% (w/w) was obtained. The protein isolate (co-product) had a higher protein content [80.6% (w/w)], lower ash [1.9% (w/w)] and mineral content and was enriched in essential amino acids, the nutritious.-linolenic acid and other high-value unsaturated fatty acids compared to the original biomass. The residual biomass obtained after protein extraction had lower nitrogen content and higher total non-protein content than the original biomass. The loss of about 50% of the total lipids from this fraction did not impact its composition significantly owing to the low lipid content of S. platensis (8.03%).
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