Comparison of Biomass Production of Spirulina (Arthrospira) platensis in Outdoor Culture Conditions Using Different Media by Urea Addition

Abstract

One of the most important challenges facing the Spirulina mass cultivation industry is to find a way to reduce the high production costs involved in production. Although the most commercial medium (Zarrouk's medium) for Spirulina cultivation is too expensive to use, it contains higher amount of $NaHCO_3$ (16.80 g $L^{-1}$ ), trace metals and vitamin solutions. The purpose of this study was to increase the efficiency of Spirulina platensis biomass production by developing a low-cost culture medium at an isolated tropical island such as Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). This study set out to formulate a lowcost medium for the culture of S. platensis, by substituting nutrients of Zarrouk's medium using fertilizer- grade urea and soil extract with a different concentration of carbon source under natural weather condition. In order to select a low-cost culture medium of S. platensis, 10 culture media were prepared with different concentrations of nitrogen (urea and $NaNO_3$ ) and $NaHCO_3$ . The highest maximum specific growth rate ( ${\mu}max$ ) and mass production were 0.50 $day^{-1}$ and 1.05 g $L^{-1}$ in modified medium ( $NaHCO_3$ 7.50 g $L^{-1}$ , urea 2.00 g $L^{-1}$ without $NaNO_3$ ) among all the synthesized media. Protein (56.14%) and carbohydrate (16.21%) concentrations of the lyophilized standard samples were estimated with highest concentration of glutamic acid (14.93%). This study revealed that the use of a low concentration of urea and $NaHCO_3$ with soil extract was an affordable medium for natural mass cultivation in the FSM.