Towards a Sustainable Route for the Production of Squalene Using Cyanobacteria

• DOI: 10.1007/s12649-017-0191-8
• Publication Date: 2018-01-05T10:45:10Z
• Authors: Mariane Bittencou...; Raquel Guidetti V...; Mariana Manzoni M...; Juliano Smanioto ...; Cristiano Ragagni...; Leila Queiroz Zepka; Eduardo Jacob-Lopes; Roger Wagner
• Keywords: 0106 biological sciences; 13. Climate action; 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy; 6. Clean water; 12. Responsible consumption

Treatment of slaughterhouse wastewater is a huge industrial problem. The use of an algae biorefinery platform could be a sustainable technological alternative that produces value-added compounds instead of dumping the wastewater. For this reason, this research aimed to evaluate squalene production from the microalgae Phormidium autumnale cultivated using agroindustrial wastewater. A derivatization method was performed to determine the squalene and fatty acids content, evaluated by gas chromatography with flame ionization and mass spectrometry detectors. A total of 0.18 g/kg of squalene were found in the biomass, with a high content of unsaturated fatty acids (52%). Sensitivity analysis estimated production of 727–72,750 kg/year in industries with different capacities. In this sense, P. autumnale in agroindustrial wastewater could offer a potential alternative method of squalene production.