Physiochemical Characterization of Oil Extracted from Microalgae Chlorella Pyrenoidosa

On the basis of technological projection and processing scientific knowledge, the biofuel derived from the microalgae, that is a third generation biofuel could be one of the promising answer to different issues related with food crops biofuel and lignocellulose material biofuel. In this study, autotrophic cultivation of Chlorella pyrenoidosa in 250ml of Fogg’s media using urea as nitrogen source was done to obtain oil rich biomass. After 5-6 days of lag phase, algal growth increased exponentially and extensive biomass i.e. 5.467±0.034g/l with lipid content of 27.2±0.26 (% Dry Cell Weight) was obtained. The lipid enriched fraction in form of ORF was obtained using solvent extraction process.This ORF was used to study its various parameters like moisture content, iodine value, peroxide value and acid value. UV-Visible Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and thin layer chromatography (TLC) studies of ORF was done to detectrelevant hydrocarbons in our ORF sample. Low moisture content (0.21% ±0.089), high iodine value (102.45±0.12) and low acid value (1.67±0.059) indicted that our ORF sample has long chain of fatty acids with no free fatty acids. UV-Vis spectrogram of our oil sample showed broad region absorption peaks at the range of 450-520nm; it shows a high concentration of long chain fatty acids in our ORF sample. The results obtained indicated that oil obtained from C. pyrenoidosa meets the ASTM standards and has excellent qualities to convert it to biodiesel to use it viable renewable energy source in the future.