114. Benchtop flow NMR spectroscopy as an online device for the in vivo monitoring of lipid accumulation in microalgae

Dylan Bouillaud, Vladimir Heredia, Thomas Castaing-Cordier, Delphine Drouin, Benoît Charrier, Olivier Gonçalves, Jonathan Farjon, Patrick Giraudeau, Algal Research, (2019) DOI: 10.1016/j.algal.2019.101624

 

The sustainable production of lipids by microalgae is widely developed among the bioprocess community targeting various applications such as feed, food, health or bioenergy. The cultivation of microalgae needs dedicated systems with the optimal illumination geometry. Performing non-invasive online analyses on these bioprocesses is limited to few analytical techniques, often based on optical properties and can however rarely be related to intracellular products. The real-time knowledge of the lipids accumulation in microalgae is –in this case– not possible. In this article, the proof-of-concept that the recent benchtop NMR spectroscopy device can be used for the non-invasive and selective detection of lipids inside microalgae cells is carried out. Three cultures of Nannochloropsis gaditana were analyzed in flow conditions. The relative quantitative feature is confirmed by the correlation with a reference technique classically used for lipid analysis, i.e. the FAME (Fatty Acid Methyl Ester) profiling by gas chromatography.