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Microalgal pigments as natural hues in environmentally-sustainable and commercially-prospective biopaints

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Abstract

Commercially available paints have synthetic colours as their primary ingredients which highly affect the environment and therefore, the search for natural resources is inevitable. Microalgal pigments are widely used as natural colourants in food and cosmetic industries; however, reports on the use of above pigments in paints are scarce and until now, only one pigment has been used in commercial/pilot formulations. In this study, environment-friendly water- and oil-based semi-synthetic, as well as natural algae paints were formulated for the first time using microalgal pigments, phycocyanin, astaxanthin and chlorophyll and their combinations. Twenty-four different colour shades of water-based algal paints were achieved. The paint characteristics including durability, adhesion, corrosion resistance and stability were tested and compared with those of commercial paints. The results show that the algae paints have good commercial prospects and the durability testing of the natural algae paint yielded unfaded and unpeeled surfaces for up to 8 months. The pH of semi-synthetic algae paint ranged between 8 and 9 and those of natural algae paint were between 10.1 and 10.2. The specific gravity of the paints of all 24 shades was between 1.3 and 1.4 g mL−1. Formulated oil-based microalgae paints of RGB shades and equiproportional mix shades showed an anticorrosive effect comparable to that of commercial oil-based paint during accelerated corrosion testing on galvanised iron, mild steel, aluminium, and carbon steel immersed in freshwater and marine water. The results of this study warrant future research and commercial validation of microalgae pigments in eco-friendly paints.

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Data availability

All data supporting the findings of this study are available within this paper, and in the original references cited herein.

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Acknowledgements

We express our sincere gratitude to the management of Madras Christian College, Chennai, for providing us the necessary space and facilities to carry out the research. We acknowledge G Publishing Service, a Chennai-based e-publishing service organisation, for providing the necessary editorial services to refine the English language usage in our manuscript.

Funding

This is a self-supported study. The facilities and equipment were supported by the management of Madras Christian College, Chennai.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Madras Christian College (Affiliated to the University of Madras), Chennai, 600 059, India

    Kanagadurai Prathiksha, Selvam Joseph Evangelien Priyadharshini, Judah Jacob, Allwin Vinoth Jayakumar & Polur Hanumantha Rao

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  1. Kanagadurai Prathiksha
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  2. Selvam Joseph Evangelien Priyadharshini
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  3. Judah Jacob
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  4. Allwin Vinoth Jayakumar
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  5. Polur Hanumantha Rao
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Contributions

PK carried out methodology, validation, and collection of resources, and wrote and reviewed the manuscript. SJEP carried out methodology, validation, and collection of resources. JJ validated the experiments, collected the resources, and wrote the original draft, reviewed and edited the manuscript. AVJ validated the experiments, collected the resources, and wrote the original draft, reviewed and edited the manuscript. PHR conceived and designed research, supervised and administered the project, and wrote, reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript for submission.

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Correspondence to Polur Hanumantha Rao.

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Prathiksha, K., Priyadharshini, S.J.E., Jacob, J. et al. Microalgal pigments as natural hues in environmentally-sustainable and commercially-prospective biopaints. J Appl Phycol 36, 191–204 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-023-03124-7

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