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Novel Extrapolymeric Substances Biocoating on Polyvinylidene Fluoride Membrane for Enhanced Attached Growth of Navicula incerta

  • Physiology and Biotechnology
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Abstract

Cell adhesion is always the first step in biofilm development. With the emergence of attached cultivation systems, this study aims to promote a cost-effective approach for sustainable cultivation of microalgae, Navicula incerta, by pre-coating the main substrates, commercial polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes with its own washed algal cells and self-produced soluble extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) for strengthened biofilm development. The effects of pH value (6 to 9), cell suspension volume (10 to 30 mL), and EPS volume (10 to 50 mL) were statistically optimized by means of response surface methodology toolkit. Model outputs revealed good agreement with cell adhesion data variation less than 1% at optimized pre-coating conditions (7.20 pH, 30 mL cell suspension volume, and 50 mL EPS volume). Throughout long-term biofilm cultivation, results demonstrated that EPS pre-coating substantially improved the attached microalgae density by as high as 271% than pristine PVDF due to rougher surface and the presence of sticky exopolymer particles. Nutrients absorbed via the available EPS coating from the bulk medium made the immobilized cells to release less polysaccharides on an average of 30% less than uncoated PVDF. This work suggests that adhesive polymer binders derived from organic sources can be effectively integrated into the development of high-performance novel materials as biocoating for immobilized microalgae cultivation.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Universiti Sains Malaysia for the Research University Grant with Project Code: RUI/8014065.

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  1. School of Chemical Engineering, Engineering Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 14300, Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia

    C. Y. Tong & C. J. C. Derek

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Contributions

C. Y. Tong: conceptualization, investigation, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, resources, validation, writing—original draft, writing—review & editing, and conceived the experiments. C. J. C. Derek: funding acquisition, project administration, supervision, conceptualization, data curation, validation, resources, and writing—review & editing.

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Correspondence to C. J. C. Derek.

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Tong, C.Y., Derek, C.J.C. Novel Extrapolymeric Substances Biocoating on Polyvinylidene Fluoride Membrane for Enhanced Attached Growth of Navicula incerta. Microb Ecol 86, 549–562 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-022-02091-9

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