• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.4B
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• pp.253-259
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• 2012

Wastewater-adapted microalgae such as Chlorella vulgaris AG10032, Ankistrodesmus gracilis SAG278-2 and Scenedesmus quadricauda AG10308 are useful biological resources for recovering biofuel and other bio-based materials from wastewater because of their efficient removals of nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater and their high fatty acid contents in biomass. Although the concentrations of phosphorus typically vary in wastewater environment, very little is known about the effect of phosphorus concentration, especially phosphorus starvation, on microalgal fatty acid synthesis. This is partially due to the lack of methodological establishment for algal fatty acid analysis. In this study, we compared the analysis performances of microalgal fatty acids by two different methods; one is a non-polar GC (gas chromatography) column based method, which is generally used for microbial fatty acids, and the other is a polar WAX-type GC column method, which is typically used for plant fatty acids. And then, we explored the effect of phosphorus concentration levels on fatty acid production in microalgae cultivated from wastewater. As results, the polar WAX-type column method has better ability to separate poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) including $C_{18:3}$ (linolenic acid), and was found to be more applicable in analyzing fatty acids from wastewater-cultivated microalgae than the non-polar column method. The fatty acid characterization by the WAX-type column method revealed little effect of phosphorus starvation on the quantity and composition of fatty acids from wastewater-cultivated microalgae.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2016

In spite of various merit of algae as biofuel, the production cost of algae is a considerable obstacle for commercialization. The concurrent development of essential technologies is needed for the cultivating, harvesting, extracting and energy transformation. The production cost of algae biofuel has still higher than that of the other commercial biofuel. The major research activity has been focused on the cultivating and the research of other processes has been done with relatively lower activity. It is difficult to separate the algae from water because of the similar magnitude of density each other. The agglomeration and extracting of algae with the hybrid technology using ultrasonic wave is rare effect of environmental hazard and also it is appropriate technology for the next generation energy resources. The present research is investigated for the effective separation of algae from water with the ultrasonics wave. The aim of the present research is focused on the establishment of optimal design of algae agglomeration system. For this purpose, the computational fluid dynamic analysis has been conducted in the flow field with ultrasonic wave and algae flow to clarify the mechanism of algae separation by ultrasonic wave.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Environmental Technology
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.563-569
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• 2018

The efficiency of wastewater treatment using microalgae was investigated in this study, focusing on nutrients and flocculation. In the experiments for reducing nutrients by incubation of microalgae, the total phosphorus and total nitrogen were removed over 92 % and 99 %, respectively. The higher flocculation rates as the average values 94% of Poly Aluminum Chloride(PAC) and 92 % of $FeCl_3$ were presented for the flocculation experiments under the conditions of Auto-flocculation and various additives. Also, the optimal(minimal) concentrations for over 90 % of flocculation were 30 mg/L and 40 mg/L for PAC and $FeCl_3$, respectively.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.83-88
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• 2012

The algal bloom, resulting from eutrophication, has caused serious water quality problems in river and lake. Therefore, it has to be removed by any means including physicochemical or biological treatment for preserving water quality. This study was conducted to investigate the microalgae removal and energy production using combined electro-flotation and anaerobic hydrogen fermentation processes. The result showed that algae removal efficiency based on chlorophyll a removal increased with the current. At a current of 0.6A, the maximum microalgae removal efficiency of 95.9% was achieved. The treatability of anaerobic hydrogen fermentation was investigated to recover energy from microalgae removed by electro-flotation. The ultimate hydrogen yields of algae before and after ultrasonic pretreatment were 17.3 and 61.1 ml $H_2/g$ dcw(dry cell weight), respectively. The ultrasonic pretreatment of algae led to 3.4-fold higher $H_2$ production due to the increase of hydrolysis rate.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.88-91
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• 2014

In this study, oil as a source of biodiesel from Nannochloropsis oceanica was extracted using organic solvent. The oil extraction yield and efficiency from dry and wet microalgae were investigated. The initial fatty acids content of the N. oceanica was 317.8 mg/g cell showing a high oil content over 30%. The yield from dry microalgae was higher than that from wet microalgae due to the inhibition of water. The yield by chloroform-methanol was the highest and the yield by hexane was the lowest. However, the total fatty acids contents with the chloroform-methanol were 678.7 and 778.2 mg/g oil under dry and wet conditions, respectively. The high oil extraction yield by chloroform-methanol reflected the fact that the extracted oil contained a high level of impurity. The hexane-methanol extraction from dry N. oceanica showed high oil extraction efficiency, 82.6%. The chloroform-methanol extraction under wet condition also showed high efficiency, 88.0%. While the hexane-methanol extraction from dry microalgae is desirable under low drying cost, the chloroform-methanol extraction from wet microalgae is desirable under high drying cost.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2021

Microalgae are primary producers of aquatic ecosystems, securing biodiversity and health of the ecosystem and contributing to reducing the impact of climate change through carbon dioxide fixation. Also, they are useful biomass that can be used as biological resources for producing valuable industrial products. However, harvesting process, which is the separation of microalgal biomass from mixed liquor, is an important bottleneck in use of valorization of microalgae as a bioresource accounting for 20 to 30% of the total production cost. This study investigates the applicability of sewage sludge-derived extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) as bioflucculant for harvesting microalgae. We compared the flocculation characteristics of microalgae using EPSs extracted from sewage sludge by three methods. The flocculation efficiency of microalgae is closely related to the carbohydrate and protein concentrations of EPS. Heat-extracted EPS contains the highest carbohydrate and protein concentrations and can be a best-suited bioflocculant for microalgae recovery with 87.2% flocculation efficiency. Injection of bioflocculant improved the flocculation efficiency of all three different algal strains, Chlorella Vulgaris, Chlamydomonas Asymmetrica, Scenedesmus sp., however the improvement was more significant when it was used for flocculation of Chlamydomonas Asymmetrica with flagella.

• Journal of Life Science
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.754-759
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• 2017

The 100 l culture system was made on the basis of LED light, and Nannochloropsis oculata was cultured in f/2 medium at light intensity ($100{\mu}mol/m^2/s$), culture temperature ($20^{\circ}C{\pm}1^{\circ}C$) and LD cycle (12hr). As a result, the maximum biomass of 1.07 g/l was cultured as a result of 100 l mass culture at $100{\mu}mol/m^2/s$ and 24 mg/l nitrate concentration in LED blue (475 nm). The extraction was carried out using sonicator, homogenizer and chemical method 0.5M HCl shredding method. The contents of chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b and carotenoid were 1.6, 0.5 and 0.3 mg/g cell. When using homogenizer, it was measured at 1.0, 0.6 and 0.2 mg/g cell. The chemical breakdown method of 0.5M HCl, chlorophyll a, b, and carotenoid contents were measured as 0.9, 0.8, 0 mg/g cell. The highest amount of biomass during the distruption time was measured at 3.6 mg/g cell at 15 min disintegration and acetone, 3.6 mg/g cell of acetone, methanol, and ethanol were measured as effective solvents. Concentration was measured by using microfilter, disk type continuous centrifuge and tubular type continuous centrifuge were 16.0, 1.1 and 0.5 g/l, respectively. Four kinds of equipment such as hot air dryer, vacuum dryer, spray dryer and freeze dryer were tested to optimize the drying process. As a result, the recovery rates of spray dryer and freeze dryer were 80% and 60%.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.155-161
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• 2002

Tetraselmis suecica (T. suecica) of Prasinophyta was selected because the growth rate is comparatively higher and the culturing is also easy. In order to investigate antioxidative activity, the soluble elements of T. suecica were fractionated using water and organic solvents such as methanol, hexane, chloroform, ethylacetate and butanol. The chloroform fraction of T. suecica showed strong antioxidative activity. The potential antioxidative activity was detected in hexane: ethylacetate (1:5) once used the fractions by different mixtures of organic solvents. This fraction was further purified by preparative thin layer chromatography (PTLC) and repeated reverse-phase HPLC. On the basis of chemical and spectroscopic evidences obtained by UV, FT-IR, FAB-MS and NMR, the compound purified from T. suecica was identified as pheophorbide-a. The antioxidative activity of the compound was comparable to that of $\alpha$-tocopherol and could be act as an antioxidant in foods.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.473-478
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• 2014

Microalgae is known as one alternative energy source of the fossil fuel with the small size of $5{\sim}50{\mu}m$ and negative charge. Currently, the cost of microalgae recovery process take a large part, about 20 - 30% of total operating cost. Thus, the microalgae recovery method with low cost is needed. In this study, the optimum current for Scenedesmus dimorphus recovery process using electrocoagulation techniques was investigated. Under the electrical current, Al metal in anode electrode is oxidized to oxidation state of $Al^{3+}$. In the cathode electrode, the water electrolysis generated $OH^-$ which combine with $Al^{3+}$ to produce $Al(OH)_3$. This hydroxide acts as a coagulant to harvest microalgae. Before applying in 1.5 L capacity electrocoagulation reactor, Scenedesmus dimorphus was cultured in 20 L cylindrical reactor to concentration of 1 OD. The microalgae recovery efficiency of electrocoagulation reactor was evaluated under different current conditions from 0.1 ~ 0.3 A. The results show that, the fastest and highest recovery efficiency were achieved at the current or 0.3 A, which the highest energy efficiency was achieved at 0.15 A.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.328-333
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• 2015

In this study, Mg-Sericite was used as a flocculant to harvest freshwater microalgae, Chlorella. vulgaris. Mg-Sericite separated successfully >95% of the C. vulgaris at the following optimal parameters: Mg/Si mol ratio 1.25 to 1.50, mixing time of 20 min and settling time of 20 min. The harvesting efficiency was pH dependent. The highest harvesting efficiency ($99{\pm}0.3%$) was obtained at Mg/Si mol ratio 1.5 and pH 9 to 11. These results indicated that a biopolymer, Mg-Sericite, can be a promising flocculant due to its high efficiency, low dose requirements, short mixing and settling times. This harvesting method is helpful to lower the production cost of algae for biodiesel.