Amarjit S. Sarpal
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., India
Title: Study of Biodiesel potential of Microalgae Biomasses by MS and NMR Spectroscopic techniques
Biography
Biography: Amarjit S. Sarpal
Abstract
Microalgae are sustainable sources of biofuels, which has gained attention due to fast depletion of petroleum reserves. Microalgae are unicellular photosynthetic organisms, that require primarily three components to produce biomass, i.e., water, CO2 and sunlight with relatively higher photosynthetic efficiency of 3–8% against 0.5% for terrestrial plants. The microalgae grow in aquatic environment of diverse sources of water such as sea, brackish, ponds and industrial waste water. Microalgae biomass is comprised of neutral (triacyl glycerides; TAG, free fatty acids; FFA) and polar lipids (glyceroglyco/phospholipids). Neutral lipids are potential sources of biodiesel and food products due to their similarity with regular vegetable crops with regard to saturated and unsaturated fatty acid profile (C14 to C22). Besides neutral lipids and polar lipids (glyceroglyco/phospholipids), various high value co-products such as epoxy esters, pigments, antioxidants, β-carotenes, polysaccharides, and vitamins can be extracted from microalgae biomass. Poly unsaturated fatty acids such as α – linolenic (ω n-3), γ– linolenic (ω n-6), DHA and EPA are abundantly cultivated by certain microalgae species, and find extensive application as food supplements due to their high nutritional value. In the proposed research topic, the role of sophisticated analytical techniques such as MS (ESI), GC-MS and NMR have been explored to determine composition and quality aspects such as triglycerides (TG) and free fatty acid (FFA) content, fatty acid profile including poly unsaturated fatty acid (ω n-3, n-6 PUFA), saturated (SFA, solid fat) and unsaturated (UFA) fatty acid content, and iodine values with an objective to explore biodiesel potential of microalgae biomasses cultivated in the specific culture media.