Selection of Culture Conditions and Cell Morphology for Biocompatible Extraction of β-Carotene from Dunaliella salina

Biocompatible extraction emerges recently as a means to reduce costs of biotechnology processing of microalgae. In this frame, this study aimed at determining how specific culture conditions and the associated cell morphology impact the biocompatibility and the extraction yield of β-carotene from the green microalga Dunaliella salina using n-decane. The results highlight the relationship between the cell disruption yield and cell volume, the circularity and the relative abundance of naturally permeabilized cells. The disruption rate increased with both the cell volume and circularity. This was particularly obvious for volume and circularity exceeding 1500 µm3 and 0.7, respectively. The extraction of β-carotene was the most biocompatible with small (600 µm3) and circular cells (0.7) stressed in photobioreactor (30% of carotenoids recovery with 15% cell disruption). The naturally permeabilized cells were disrupted first; the remaining cells seems to follow a gradual permeabilization process: reversibility (up to 20 s) then irreversibility and cell disruption. This opens new carotenoid production schemes based on growing robust β-carotene enriched cells to ensure biocompatible extraction.

Neochloris oleoabundans from nature to industry: a comprehensive review

Microalgae technology has been extensively studied during the last two decades. Thousands of species were isolated, and few are currently used in the market for multiple purposes. The current comprehensive review focuses on a promising species named Neochloris oleoabundans. It encompasses a historical overview of the species followed by a detailed description of its taxonomy, ecophysiology and morphology. Furthermore, a thorough screening is conducted to outline the production conditions employed to grow the microalga. In addition, multiple cell disruption and fractionation methods previously applied on N. oleoabundans are described and discussed together with the value chain creation after applying all the unit operations.