Comparison of Nannochloropsis sp. cells disruption between hydrodynamic cavitation and conventional extraction

Abstract

Biodiesel production from microalgae is one of the solution of the future energy problem, but its production cost is still high. One of the costly stages of this process is the lipid extraction process. It can be reduced by microalgae cell disruption. One of the mechanical method to cell disruption with the lowest energy requirement is hydrodynamic cavitation. This aim of this study is to evaluate the distribution coefficient and the mass transfer coefficient value of lipid extraction of Nannochloropsis sp. assisted by hydrodynamic cavitation and compare with conventional extraction. The hydrodynamic cavitation extraction was done at 34 °C, 1 atm. The conventional extraction was done at 34 °C, 1 atm with stirring speed 260 and 1000 rpm. The experimental result shows that the distribution coefficient dependent on the temperature with the values for 50, 44, 38 and 34 °C were 0.502, 0.394, 0.349, and 0.314 respectively. And it was according to Van' Hoff equation with the values of ΔH° was 20.718 kJ/mol and ΔS° was 58.05 J/mol/K. The hydrodynamic cavitation extraction was faster than conventional. The mass transfer coefficient values for hydrodynamic cavitation, conventional 260 rpm and 1000 rpm were 7.373, 0.534 and 0.121 1/s respectively.