Low cost ionic liquid–water mixtures for effective extraction of carbohydrate and lipid from algae

Trang Q. To; Kerryn Procter; Blake A. Simmons; Suresh Subashchandrabose; Rob Atkin

doi:10.1039/C7FD00158D

Low cost ionic liquid–water mixtures for effective extraction of carbohydrate and lipid from algae

Trang Q. To,*^a Kerryn Procter,^a Blake A. Simmons,

^b Suresh Subashchandrabose^c and Rob Atkin

^ad

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Priority Research Centre for Advanced Fluids and Interfaces, Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources, Australia
E-mail: Trang.To@newcastle.edu.au

^b Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Joint BioEnergy Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA

^c Global Centre for Environmental Remediation, Faculty of Science, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales 2308, Australia

^d School of Molecular Sciences, The University of Western Australia, WA 6009, Australia

Abstract

Biomass based biofuels are already an important energy source, and will increasingly be so in the future as the need for renewable energy rises. Due to their fast multiplication rates, algae can provide a sustainable supply of biomass, and are attractive because they do not compete with food crops for habitat. Here we show that biomass derived from Chlorella vulgaris and Spirulina platensis can be pretreated with low cost choline amino acid based ionic liquids to effectively yield lipids (30.6% and 51% total lipids) and sugars (71% and 26% total sugars). The ionic liquids dissolve the lipids, leaving behind a carbohydrate rich solid. The lipids were extracted with hexane, and the solid was subjected to enzyme hydrolysis to release fermentable sugars. These results open new pathways towards the dual production of biodiesel and bioethanol from algae, using low cost ionic liquids.

This article is part of the themed collection: Ionic liquids: from fundamental properties to practical applications

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C7FD00158D
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 01 May 2017
Accepted: 17 May 2017
First published: 17 May 2017
This article is Open Access

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Faraday Discuss., 2018,206, 93-112

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Low cost ionic liquid–water mixtures for effective extraction of carbohydrate and lipid from algae

T. Q. To, K. Procter, B. A. Simmons, S. Subashchandrabose and R. Atkin, Faraday Discuss., 2018, 206, 93 DOI: 10.1039/C7FD00158D

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

Faraday Discussions

Low cost ionic liquid–water mixtures for effective extraction of carbohydrate and lipid from algae

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Low cost ionic liquid–water mixtures for effective extraction of carbohydrate and lipid from algae

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