studies on cultivation, cell wall development, and gene analysis of marine microalgae pleurochrysis carterae and isochrysis zhanjiangensis
abstract
in last decade, the mankind has been intensively facing the climate changes in the whole
world, because the demand for fuel and greenhouse gas emissions isincreasing dramatically,
especially the amount of carbon dioxide. to reduce carbon dioxide in the environment,
chemical immobilization, physical fixation, and biofixation are used. to solve this series of
problems, except developing hydro energy, sources like wind energy, solar energy, humans
began to exploit new alternative energy sources, such as bioethanol and biodiesel. among
biofixation, microalga is generally considered to be the most effective one, because of its
faster growth rate (about 8 hours/generation), wider distribution range, and lower
production cost. pleurochrysis carterae is a marine microalga that not only absorbs carbon
dioxide by photosynthesis but also absorbs hco3
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in the ocean and air to synthesize caco3
through its unique calcification. moreover, pleurochrysis carterae has a lipid content as
high as to 33 %, which also contains with high nutritional value. in other words,
pleurochrysis carterae not only has a high potential value in fixing carbon dioxide but also
has a great potential in the production of biodiesel and some other high priced products,
such as fucoxanthin. another species of microalga, haptophyte isochrysis zhanjiangensis,
has tremendous potentials in producing high-value products, including fucoxanthin and
docosahexaenoic acid (dha).