Accès direct au contenu

ENS Cachan - Institut d'Alembert

Version anglaise

aide

Downscaling the microalage culture platform for expediting strain and product screening

le 28 juin 2017
à 11h

Hsiang-Yu Wang Associate Professor, Department of Engineering and System Science, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan

Abstract : Microalgae have been studied intensively in the past decade because they have great potential in simultaneous production of biofuels and other high-value products. For example, microalgae extracts have shown great antioxidant and anti-cancer effects and many of the antioxidant pigments have already been commercialized. However, the production of microalgae biomass and their cellular contents strongly depends on the kind of microalgae, the cultivation condition, and the stress for inducing the accumulation of specific molecules. Conventional analyses for the cellular components of microalgae are multi-step and time-consuming, making the optimization of cultivation strategy challenging and prolonged. Therefore, a rapid and high-throughput platform for assessing the quality of microalgae culture is in great need. To rapidly investigate the effects of cultivation conditions and stresses on microalgae, micro-bioreactors have been developed and applied in enhancing the production of lipids and astaxanthin. The accumulation of lipids and antioxidant pigments is induced by nutrient starvation, high irradiation, high temperature, or extreme pH values. However, nutrient starvation creates a changing stress that is challenge to track and control. Oxidative stresses created by adverse environment can arrest the growth of microalgae. On the other hand, a weak electric field is reported to enhance the production of both chlorophyll and carotenoids in microalgae. Therefore, we design a micro-bioreactor integrated with microelectrodes to investigate the improvement of production of microalgal biomass and pigments by the electrical stimulus. We have also been developing micro-sensors for monitoring the physical and chemical parameters during the microalgae cultivation. Our results show that the micro-bioreactor is capable of screening the optimal parameters for producing biomass and pigments. The optimal carbon source and the electric stimulus (10 V/cm) enhances the pigment production to 150%. The development of micro-sensors for pH value, dissolved oxygen, carbon dioxide, and carbohydrates will also be briefly introduced, too.
Biography : Professor Hsiang-Yu (Angie) Wang is devoted to the development of multi-scale bioenergy systems, microfluidics, and high-throughput analysis. She graduated with a Ph.D. from the School of Chemical Engineering in Purdue University, USA in 2007. In 2008, she participated in a NIH funded research in Brigham Young University, USA as a postdoctoral researcher. She then worked as an assistant professor in National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan since 2009 and became an associate professor in 2013. She has been an associate professor in the Department of Engineering and System Science in National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan since 2014. Her research group has developed micro-scale or lab-scale detection platforms for accessing the information of energy producing process in a timely manner. She has published more than 20 papers in renowned SCI journal and cited for more than 600 times.
Type :
Séminaires - conférences
Lieu(x) :
Amphithéâtre CHEMLA

Recherche d'une actualité

Recherche d'une actualité