Simultaneous production of biodiesel and bioethanol through mixotrophic cultivation of Chlorella sp.

It is a comparative study on the effects of cultivation conditions in the simultaneous production of biodiesel and ethanol using microalga Chlorella sp. Intracellular lipid and reducing sugar were extracted from the biomass using the solvent extraction to conduct comparison of the yield, fatty acids profile configuration, and monosaccharide composition. The 27 days cultivation of Chlorella sp. in 20 l photobioreactor under mixo-, hetero-, and autotrophic conditions presented the cell concentration, lipid and reducing sugar yield at 4.13, 2.10, 3.50 g.L-1, 24.1, 18.4, 16.7 (%, w/w), and 30.6, 27.5, 29.1 (%, w/w), respectively. Result shows that Chlorella sp. achieves the highest lipid and reducing sugar yield under the mixotrophic condition with 0.0369 and 0.0468 g.L-1.d(-1), respectively. Also, Chlorella sp. when cultivated using the mixotrophic condition, builds better fatty acid and reducing sugar in the cell that can be synthesized for biodiesel and ethanol production.