Comparative Study of Microalgae Samples from Nepal for bio-fuel potentials

J. Algal Biomass Utln. 2014, 5 (3): 8- 15

Comparative Study of Microalgae Samples from Nepal for bio-fuel potentials

ISSN: 2229- 6905

Comparative Study of Microalgae Samples from Nepal for bio-fuel potentials
Nirpesh Dhakal1*, Sanjaya Lama1, Angela Shrestha1, Tika Bahadur Karki1, Paras Mani Timilsina1, Shiva Kumar Rai2
1
2

Department of Biotechnology, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Nepal

Department of Botany, Post Graduate Campus, Tribhuvan University, Biratnagar, Nepal email: *[e-mail]

Abstract
This paper is on a comparative study on growth rate and lipid content of various microalgae samples collected from biologically and geographically diversified areas on Nepal. Comparisons were also made on samples with same genus isolated from geographically diversified areas (i.e. high altitude
(>4000 m) and mid hill (>1000 m)), and effect of seasonal variation (with respect to temperature) on similar species of microalgae. Euglena sp., Chlorella vulgaris, and Scenedesmus sp. with growth rate of 0.401 day-1, 0.377 day-1, and 0.342 day-1 and lipid content above 27 % were taken for the later studies.
Mountain varieties showed slightly higher growth rate with difference in their lipid contents up to 0.5 % as compared to mid-hill varieties. In case of seasonal effect, there was increase in the growth rate of all three species during summer temperature of 27 ± 2 oC; whereas, due to this temperature negative affect was seen in the lipid content of these species.

Keywords- Altitude, Biodiesel, Growth Rate, Lipid, Microalgae, Temperature.
Introduction
Microalgae could be considered as one of the most versatile microorganism as it could be used in various fields including food, feed, fuel, waste water treatment, and air quality improvement (CO2 sequestration) (Priyadarshani and Rath, 2012; Li et. al., 2008). These are unicellular and simple multicellular photosynthetic micro-organisms, either prokaryotes (cyanobacteria) or

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