Disruption of Microalgae Cells as the First Step of the Recovery of Intracellular Metabolites

Approach

In particular, two cell disruption techniques being explosive decompression and enzymatic   treatment will be studied as function of several process parameters and microalgae species.

The effectiveness of the applied disruption methods will be compared with the reference technique being bead milling by assessing the cell disintegration. After identifying the most feasible mild disruption technique and their parameter values, the whole process chain (from disruption to product) will be elaborated and an economic analysis will be performed based on the data obtained

Driven by the rising importance of biorefinery concept in biotechnology, the necessity for mild cell disruption methods are turning into one of the crucial steps in bioprocess chain. Product selectivity and quality and, increased cost effectiveness are the main outputs have to be improved for cell disruption processes.

Thesis projects

Within this project there are various possibilities for doing a BSc or MSc thesis. If you are interested in doing a BSc or MSc thesis, feel free to contact me.