Variations among antioxidant profiles in lipid and phenolic extracts of microalgae from different growth medium

Abstract

Up-scaling the production of value added products from microalgae requires reliable techniques. This study has been carried out in order to determine whether microalgae have an inherent tendency to contain similar proportions of antioxidant properties in its lipid and phenolic extracts under varying growth medium. Chlorella vulgaris and Acutodesmus obliquus (Scenedesmus obliquus) were cultivated in normal water, Bold’s medium and sewage water followed by extraction of lipids and phenolics. The extracts were subjected to in vitro antioxidant assays performed in triplicates in which higher scavenging activity of DPPH and super oxide radical was observed in phenolic extracts. However, there was a significantly higher antioxidant potential found in lipid extracts suggests that next to the well studied phenolic compounds, microalgal lipids should also be considered when using microalgae as a source of natural antioxidants. Further, antioxidant profile of lipid and phenolic extracts from same species varied with growth medium.