Fatty Acid Compositions of Solvent Extracted Lipids from Two Microalgae

2009-01-3236

11/10/2009

Event
Aerospace Technology Conference and Exposition
Authors Abstract
Content
Oil extracted from microalgae has the potential to offset demand for petroleum, if conditions of cost and scale can be met. In this paper, we present the compositional differences of fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) obtained by solvent extraction from two different oleaginous microalgae. Oil samples were extracted from a proprietary alga (Alga X) and a more common Nannochloropsis oculata (NC) using the Soxhlet process with n-hexane. The neutral lipids contained in Alga X comprised approximately 40 to 60% of the algal dry weight, and the oil was mostly converted to methyl esters using a transesterification process. On the other hand, NC produced approximately 25% lipids, but the yield of methyl esters was often less than 1% and subject to high variation. FAMEs were analyzed using gas chromatography and the average chain lengths for NC were shown to be greater than the average chain lengths for Alga X. These results suggest that the fuel chain length, and hence the fuel properties, can be significantly influenced by the strain of microalgae from which the biofuel is derived.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2009-01-3236
Pages
9
Citation
Barker, J., Mescher, A., and Kramlich, J., "Fatty Acid Compositions of Solvent Extracted Lipids from Two Microalgae," SAE Technical Paper 2009-01-3236, 2009, https://doi.org/10.4271/2009-01-3236.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Nov 10, 2009
Product Code
2009-01-3236
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English