Isolation and Characterization of New Temperature Tolerant Microalgal Strains for Biomass Production

Microalgae exhibit great potential for biomass production. Although microalgae display an enormous biodiversity, surprisingly only 15 species are used for large scale production processes worldwide. The implementation of new production strains with good process-oriented properties, especially fast growth rate and heat resistance, could improve production efficiency and reduce costs. In this study 130 environmental samples collected in Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal were investigated for fast growing thermotolerant photosynthetic species. Isolates were characterized and identified on a molecular level. In total 21 of the isolated freshwater strains were able to grow at 40 degrees C. Additionally, 13 of those 21 strains are able to grow at 45 degrees C. The highest growth rate at room temperature was 1.16 per day (isolate T306A), compared to 0.053 per day at 45 degrees C (isolate Sp13). In three thermotolerant strains pigment production was induced. Molecular identification by 18S rDNA sequencing revealed that the isolates were all chlorophytes belonging to four different families.