Enhancement Of Microalgae Adhesion To Substrate Via Algal Organic Matter Pre-Treatment
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Date
2021-07-01
Authors
Lew, Jun Kit
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Porous substrate cultivation (PSC) is more advantageous than the conventional
suspension cultivation in terms of the reduction of water volume needed and the
omission of gas-liquid mass transfer resistance. Thus, the degree of adhesion of
Amphora coffeaeformis, Cylindrotheca fusiformis and Navicula incerta on commercial
polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane strip surface before and after coating with
the soluble extracellular polymeric substances (sEPS) of N. incerta was determined in
this study. All three species showed stronger cell adhesion on the coated PVDF
membrane strips than on the pristine ones. This was because the coated PVDF
membrane strips already had a conditioning film on its surface after the coating while
the pristine membrane strips only had biofilms start developing on them when the
experiment started. The sEPS generally had higher productivity of polysaccharide than
of protein while for bounded EPS (bEPS), the productivities of polysaccharide and
protein between pristine and coated membrane strips were compared. All three
microalgal species on pristine membrane strips produced bEPS that contained higher
protein content than polysaccharide whereas on coated membrane strips, the
productivity of bEPS polysaccharide was higher than that of protein for A.
coffeaeformis and C. fusiformis and this result was related to the species’ adaptation to
the substrate surface wettability. However, N. incerta did not show such relation maybe
because it had a stable, yet low metabolic rate on the coated membrane strips, so
extracellular enzymes were secreted to compensate the low rate, leading to a higher
protein productivity.