Abstract
In addition to biodiesel production from algae, the production of other valuable bioproducts facilitates the development of an algae-based biorefinery platform. The goal of this study was to utilize the aqueous fraction from a novel algal wet lipid extraction procedure as the medium for the production of a bio product, poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), via the growth of recombinant Escherichia coli. PHB yield was measured at 34 % of the E. coli dry cell mass, and was increased to 51 % when the algae aqueous medium was supplemented with glucose. While the addition of inorganic nutrients to the aqueous phase did not increase PHB production or growth of E. coli, growth of E. coli was observed to increase with the supplementation of carbon substrate (glucose). The addition of carbon rich waste to the aqueous fraction of wastewater-derived algae may in the future provide a sustainable alternative. Future research will be directed at evaluating this concept to develop a sustainable process for the production of bioplastics through an algae-based biorefinery platform.
References
Demirbas A, Fatih Demirbas M (2011) Importance of algae oil as a source of biodiesel. Energy Convers Manage 52:163–170
Lardon L, Hélias A, Sialve B, Steyer J-P, Bernard O (2009) Life-cycle assessment of biodiesel production from microalgae. Environ Sci Technol 43:6475–6481
Brennan L, Owende P (2010) Biofuels from microalgae-A review of technologies for production, processing, and extractions of biofuels and co-products. Renew Sust Energ Rev 14:557–577
Collet P, Hélias A, Lardon L, Ras M, Goy R-A, Steyer J-P (2011) Life-cycle assessment of microalgae culture coupled to biogas production. Bioresour Technol 102:207–214
Mata TM, Martins AA, Caetano NS (2010) Microalgae for biodiesel production and other applications: a review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 14:217–232
Dias JML, Lemos PC, Serafim LS, Oliveira C, Eiroa M, Albuquerque MGE et al (2006) Recent advances in polyhydroxyalkanoate production by mixed aerobic cultures: from the substrate to the final product. Macromol Biosci 6:885–906
Khanna S, Srivastava AK (2005) Recent advances in microbial polyhydroxyalkanoates. Process Biochem 40:607–619
Chanprateep S (2010) Current trends in biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoates. J Biosci Bioeng 110:621–632
Lee SY, Chang HN (1995) Production of poly(3-hydroxybutyric acid) by recombinant Escherichia coli strains: genetic and fermentation studies. Can J Microbiol 41(Suppl 1):207–215
Cavalheiro JMBT, de Almeida MCMD, Grandfils C, da Fonseca MMR (2009) Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) production by Cupriavidus necator using waste glycerol. Process Biochem 44:509–515
Wong HH, Lee SY (1998) Poly-(3-hydroxybutyrate) production from whey by high-density cultivation of recombinant Escherichia coli. Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 50:30–33
Balaji S, Gopi K, Muthuvelan B (2013) A review on production of poly beta hydroxybutyrates from cyanobacteria for the production of bio plastics. Algal Res 2:278–285
Chaogang W, Zhangli H, Anping L, Baohui J (2010) Biosynthesis of poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (phb) in the transgenic green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. J Phycol 46:396–402
Sathish A, Sims RC (2012) Biodiesel from mixed culture algae via a wet lipid extraction procedure. Bioresour Technol 118:643–647
Ellis JT, Hengge NN, Sims RC, Miller CD (2012) Acetone, butanol, and ethanol production from wastewater algae. Bioresour Technol 111:491–495
Linton E (2010) A synthetic biological engineering approach to secretion-based recovery of polyhydroxyalkanoates and other cellular products, all graduate theses and dissertations
Sambrook J, Russell DW (2001) Molecular cloning: a laboratory manual. CSHL Press, New York
Studier FW (2005) Protein production by auto-induction in high density shaking cultures. Protein Expr Purif 41:207–234
Braunegg G, Sonnleitner B, Lafferty RM (1978) A rapid gas chromatographic method for the determination of poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid in microbial biomass. Eur J Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 6:29–37
Singh G, Kumari A, Mittal A, Goel V, Yadav A, Aggarwal NK (2013) Cost effective production of poly-β-hydroxybutyrate by Bacillus subtilis NG05 using sugar industry waste water. J Polym Environ 21:441–449
Acknowledgments
Research presented in this paper was supported through the USU Sustainable Waste to Bioproducts Engineering Center (Ron Sims, PI), the USU Synthetic Biomanufacturing Institute (Scott Hinton, PI), the City of Logan Environmental Department (Issa Hamud, Director), and the Utah Water Research Laboratory (Mac Mckee, Director). The authors would also like to acknowledge Asif Rahman for providing the recombinant E. coli used in this study and Jason Brown and Dong Chen for their assistance and expertise during this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sathish, A., Glaittli, K., Sims, R.C. et al. Algae Biomass Based Media for Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) Production by Escherichia coli . J Polym Environ 22, 272–277 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-014-0647-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-014-0647-x