Preliminary investigation on the disruption of microalgae cell wall using vortex induced vibration (VIV)

Abstract

Scenedesmus sp. is industrially known for its high lipids content that can be used in biofuels production. Most of the conventional mechanical methods to disrupt the microalgae cell wall use high frequency approaches. The conventional high frequency methods have few disadvantages which are high energy consumption, high cost and application of solvents which are the cause of environmental pollution. In this paper, a low frequency method called vortex induced vibration (VIV) is proposed to replace the conventional mechanical methods to disrupt microalgae cell wall. An experimental rig has been designed and fabricated for this experiment. Based on the experiment, the result shows that VIV method has the possibility to break microalgae cell wall since the turbidity decrease throughout the days.