Our Laboratory
Algaetech Group possesses an advanced research laboratory situated in the premises of Technology Park Malaysia. In our laboratory, we are currently culturing and maintaining 8 different strains of axenic micro algae cultures.
Nannochloropsis species
- a non-motile, green coloured cells with no flagella and grows in saline water.
Chlorella species
- a non motile species, small round or oval (2-15 μm)with a cup shaped chloroplast.
Tetraselmis species
- motile, green cell usually grows 10 µm long x 14 µm wide with 4 flagella’s that emerge from the anterior end of the cell.
Haematococcus species
- motile, cells oval 10-30 µm long, contents separated from the wall by a clear space crossed by radial theads. fresh water organisms.
Botrycoccus species
- cells form an irregularly shaped aggregate. Thin filaments connect the cells. The cell body is ovoid, 6 – 10 μm long, and 3 – 6 μm wide.
Dunaliella species
- motile, unicellular, rod to ovoid shaped (9 – 11 µm) green algae, common in marine waters. Relatively simple to cultivate and do not clump or form chains.
Scenedesmus species
-Flat colonies of 2,4 or 8 elongated cells arranged in rows with spines at the corners of the colonies, cells 5-30 µm long.
Pure stocks of these strains are kept in growth chamber, under 12L: 12D light cycle (12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark per day) and constantly maintained at 19°c.
The stocks are sub cultured once a month and also be used as a source to start cultures in flasks. From the flasks the cultures were taken to blue bottles > columns > Blue tanks > open ponds/closed bio-reactor. Upto columns the cultures were grown inside the lab. Later they were grown and acclimatized in the green house in blue tanks and open ponds. Depending on the culture density, these pure cultures are maintained and sub cultured regularly at an interval of 6-8 days.
At the TPM premises, we are growing micro algae in large scale in raceway ponds and a model photo bio reactor (PBR) system. The raceway pond is a open system with total capacity of 12686L whereas PBR is a closed system with total capacity of 600L.
We, in the laboratory, analyze and maintain the important parameters for culturing the algae and for the steady, healthy growth of algae on a daily basis. The most important parameters for growing the cultures are pH, temperature, dissolved oxygen, nitrate, Total Dissolved Carbon (TDC) and salinity.
For research and development, we harvest from 500L to 6000L, for small scale experiments (oil and biodiesel). The harvesting and processing of our algae is divided into 3 steps.
1st step : Flocculation
This process induces aggregation and agglomeration of the algae. So, it’s easy to take out the water and to harvest the concentrated algae. Flocculation can be induced by several chemicals.
2nd step : Centrifugation
The concentrated algae harvested by flocculation are further centrifuged at 4000rpm (rotation per minute). A very dense wet algae biomass is obtained.
3rd step : Spray Dry
The wet algae biomass obtained from the centrifuge is dried and powdered by bench spray drier.
