Influence of Culture Media on Indigenous Microalgae Growth, Biomass Productivity and Lipids Content for Promising Biodiesel Production

Variation in the composition of the culture medium plays an important role in the biochemical composition of microalgae which can be valorized into products with high added value such as lipids for biodiesel production. Different media have varying concentrations of nutrients that can significantly alter the amount of cell growth and secondary metabolites accumulated during culture. In this work, the effect of culture medium on biomass production and lipids content was evaluated from an indigenous microalgae consortium. These microalgae strains have been isolated from freshwater source located in the northeast region of Algeria. For this purpose, three culture media as adapted for the cultivation of green microalgae were selected: Bold Basal’s medium (BBM), modified Blue-Green (BG-11) and Zarrouk medium. The obtained results show that modified BG11 is the appropriate culture medium for the studied strains. In fact, microalgae consortium presented a high growth rate (1.22 d^-1) and significant biomass productivity (about 0.36g/L/d. In addition, the harvested biomass was valorized through its lipids content for biodiesel production. An appreciable average value of 46% was obtained in the case of modified-BG11 medium.