Cultivation of microalgae on the aqueous phase

Four microalgal strains Chlorella Minutissima, Chlorella sorokiniana UUIND6, Chlorella singularis UUIND5, and Scenedesmus abundans were used in this study.

Scenedesmus abundans wasprocured from NCIM, Pune, India. Chlorella Minutissima was procured from IARI, New Delhi, India. Chlorella singularis UUIND5 and Chlorella sorokiniana UUIND6 were earlier isolated by our group.

Microalgal strains were cultivated in 1 L shake flasks containing different dilutions of the aqueous phase of catalytic and non-catalytic reaction and Bold’s Basal Medium (BBM) as a control for 14 days with 16 h light: 8 h dark photoperiod and irradiated with LED tubes (200 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹). BBM was prepared according to the protocol developed by Guarnieri et al.⁴².

Three concentrations 200×, 400× and 600× of the aqueous phase of non-catalytic reaction were prepared by the dilution of distilled water (Table 1). The effect on the growth rate of microalgae strains was observed by taking absorbance at 750 nm using UV–Vis spectrophotometer (Shimadzu 133 model no. 1700). Dilution 400× was capable of growing the maximum biomass and was further evaluated for their efficiency in biomass production with 1% BBM and 400× dilution of the aqueous phase of the catalytic reaction.