Room: Poster Area A
Date: Thursday, 12 June 2025
Time: 13:45 - 14:45 CEST
Session code 1DV.5
Sustainable integrated agricultural management practices and algae
Unravelling the Impact of Nitrogen Deprivation in Parachlorella Kessleri
Short Introductive summary
Cell disruption is one of the main bottlenecks in the expansion of microalgae-based fuels. This work delves into basic research to use nanoscale properties to overcome such limitation and optimize this pre-treatment step. To do this, Parachlorella kessleri, a freshwater microalga with a very promising future in biofuel production due to its high lipid accumulation under nitrogen deprivation (starvation) conditions, was evaluated both in its regular and starved forms. The evaluation was conducted in terms of biochemical profile, highlighting the metabolic shift towards lipid production induced by the absence of nitrogen, as well as in terms of morphology and nanomechanical properties. The latter required the use of different microscopy techniques to evaluate starvation's impact on cell size, cell wall thickness, Young's modulus and adhesive forces of both cell types, allowing the development of more efficient cell disruption strategies for each type of biomass.
Presenter
Esther TORRENS
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Chemical Engineering Dpt., SPAIN
Biographies and Short introductive summaries are supplied directly by presenters and are published here unedited
Co-authors:
D. Rivas-Navia, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Taragona, SPAIN
J Cheikhwafa, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, SPAIN
E Torrens, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, SPAIN
C. Bengoa, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, SPAIN
Session reference: 1DV.5.31