Sugarcane bagasse as a novel low/no cost organic carbon source for growth of Chlorella sp. BR2

The most sustainable and eco-friendly approaches for biodiesel production now a days is microalgae farming due to its prompt growth rate, not affecting food chain and high oil yields. However, pilot scale harvesting is not economically feasible. Cultivating microalgae on food wastes/food industrial wastes will help improving the problem significantly. Microalgae have been employed on various wastes/industrial effluents which have been proved to be valuable nutrient sources. Sugarcane bagasse was utilized as low-cost carbon source in the present study which is one of abundantly available, biodegradable and cheap agro-industrial food waste. The highest productivity of 0.056 g L-1 d(-1), lipid contents of 13.55% and protein contents of 31.5% were observed when Chlorella sp. BR2 was grown mixotrophically in bagasse. Fatty acids analyzed via GCMS, showed that the C16 and C18 were predominating fatty acids in Chlorella grown mixotrophically in bagasse and hence make it a suitable feedstock for the production of a good quality biodiesel. Thus the present study proved that Chlorella sp. BR2 appears potential candidate for biodiesel production while utilizing sugarcane bagasse as an organic carbon substrate.