Astaxanthin Production by High-Density Microalgal Cultures

초록

High-density culture of Haematococcus pluvialis for astaxanthin production was performed in several types of photobioreactors with CO2 and nitrate supplements. For all types of photobioreactors, working volume was about 400 mL of various media and light intensity was adjusted between 40-200 mmol/m2s as the cultures grew, and aeration of 0.1-0.2 vvm with CO2 enriched air was used. We obtained the final cell concentration of 2.2 ´ 107 cell/L, dry cell weight of 5.0 g/L (fresh cell weight of 20.5 g/L), and astaxanthin concentration of 250 mg/L with fed-batch cultures. These values were higher than most of recently reported data.