Improvement of hydrocarbon recovery by two-stage cell-recycle extraction in the cultivation of Botryococcus braunii

In situ extraction by organic solvent was studied in order to improve the recovery yield of hydrocarbon from the culture of Botryococcus braunii, a green colonial microalga. When the solvent mixture of octanol as an extractive solvent and n-octane as a biocompatible solvent was added to a two-phase column, the algal growth was seriously inhibited, even at a low concentration of polar octanol. Therefore, a two-stage cell-recycle extraction process was proposed to improve the contact area between the organic phase and the aqueous phase. The hydrocarbon recovery with in situ cell-recycle extraction showed a three-fold increase (57% of cell) in yield over that with two-phase extraction. In addition, over 60% of the hydrocarbon could be recovered without serious cell damage by downstream separation when this process was applied to the culture broth after batch fermentation.