Institute for Water and Wastewater Technology, Durban University of Technology, P.O. Box 1334, Durban 4000, South Africa.
Institute for Water and Wastewater Technology, Durban University of Technology, P.O. Box 1334, Durban 4000, South Africa.
Bioresour Technol. 2015 Jan;176:1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2014.11.014. Epub 2014 Nov 11.
The efficient harvesting of microalgae is considered to be one of the challenging steps of algal biofuel production and a key factor limiting the commercial use of microalgae. To overcome the limitation of metallic electrodes depletion, the application of non-sacrificial electrode was investigated for the electrochemical harvesting (ECH) of microalgae. The effect of applied current, addition of electrolyte and initial pH were parameters investigated. The highest recovery efficiency of 83% was obtained for Scenedesmus obliquus at 1.5A, initial pH 9 and 6gL(-)(1) NaCl with power consumption of 3.84kWhkg(-)(1). Recovery efficiency of ECH process was comparable to literature reported centrifugation, filtration and chemical flocculation techniques but with a much lower power consumption. The ECH process with addition of electrolyte enhanced the lipid extraction by 22% without any adverse effects. The ECH process with non sacrificial carbon electrodes could be a possible harvesting step at commercial scale microalgal biomass production.
高效收获微藻被认为是藻类生物燃料生产中具有挑战性的步骤之一，也是限制微藻商业应用的关键因素。为了克服金属电极耗尽的限制，研究了非消耗性电极在微藻电化学收获（ECH）中的应用。考察了施加电流、添加电解质和初始 pH 值等参数的影响。在 1.5A、初始 pH 值为 9 和 6gL(-)(1)NaCl 条件下，添加电解质可使斜生栅藻的最高回收率达到 83%，能耗为 3.84kWhkg(-)(1)。ECH 过程的回收率与文献报道的离心、过滤和化学絮凝技术相当，但能耗要低得多。添加电解质的 ECH 过程可将脂质提取率提高 22%，而不会产生任何不利影响。使用非消耗性碳电极的 ECH 过程可能是商业规模微藻生物量生产中可行的收获步骤。
