Requirement of Cyanobacteria Synechococcus elongatus for the biomass and lipid production

Abstract

Synechococcus elongatus is unicellularCyanobacteria having fast growth and can conduct photosynthesis process in its cells.This research purposed to evaluate the potential of Synechococcus elongatus as an candidate of biodiesel feedstocks by evaluating its biomass and lipid content in appropriate nutrients. The study was conducted at Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand. The Factorial Completely Randomized Design was used as experimental design in this study. The species was grown in BG II medium which was added by different doses of NaNO3 and KHPO4. Cultivation was conducted for seven days for several parameters, namely appropriate dose of nutrients, specific growth rate, biomass, and lipid content. This study resulted the optimal dose of nitrate from NaNO3 and phosphate from KHPO4 for good growth of Synechococcus elongatus which were 289.11 mg/L of NO3- and 22.26 mg/L of HPO4.This species grew well in BG-II medium added optimal nutrients at specific growth rate of 0.34µg/day. The optimal lipid productivity of Synechococcus elongatus was achieved at day 6th of cultivation which its dried biomass was 0.21 0.03 g/L and total lipid was 1.89 0.28%. Based on the results, Synechococcus elongatus cultivated in BG-II medium was potential tobe biodiesel source with its fast growth and lipid content in its cell.