Effects of red and blue light emitting diodes on biomass and astaxanthin of Haematococcus pluvialis in pilot scale angled twin-layer porous substrate photobioreactors

Thanh-Tri Do^{1, 2}, Bich-Huy Tran-Thi³, Binh-Nguyen Ong³, Tuan-Loc Le³, Thanh-Cong Nguyen³, Quoc-Dang Quan⁴, Thuong-Chi Le⁵, Dai-Long Tran⁵, Michael Melkonian⁶_, Hoang-Dung Tran^7*

¹University of Science, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

²Faculty of Biology, Ho Chi Minh city University of Education, Vietnam

³Faculty of Biotechnology, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Vietnam

⁴Agency for Southern Affairs of Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam

⁵Van Lang University, Vietnam

⁶Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Germany

⁷Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry, Vietnam

Received 23 December 2020; accepted 15 March 2021

 

Abstract:

The production of natural astaxanthin is usually accomplished by suspended cultivation of the microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis. In this study, for the purpose of cost reduction, H. pluvialis is grown in pilot scale angled twin-layer porous substrate photobioreactors with light energy from red/blue LEDs that can produce red light, blue light, or a combination of blue-red light. The total dry biomass of the microalgae reached a maximum of 40.74 g.m^-2 under blue-red LEDs. The early initiation of blue-red LED illumination (on day 2) after algae immobilization in the biofilm resulted in the highest accumulation of astaxanthin in the dry biomass, which reached a maximum of 1.3% (w/w) after 10 d of culture.

Keywords: angled, astaxanthin, biofilm, Haematococcus pluvialis, photobioreactor, porous substrate, twin-layer.

Classification number: 3.5