Vibro® Membrane Filtration (VMF) enables the continuous and highly efficient harvest and concentration of algae. Within just a three steps, concentrations of 200 g/l from a constant stream of 6500 l/h can be reached. A similar process can be used to concentrate algae before lysis. After this, VMF can be used for the recovery and concentration of lysate proteins via micro- and ultrafiltration.
Description:
Algae culture from a pond or a photo bioreactor is preconcentrated continuously or as a batch with plug flow using a Vibro-I system. During preconcentration, up to 98% of the water is removed as sterile permeate. The water can be returned directly to the pond or reactor. This often results in improved growth as nutrients are kept intact in the permeate.
In the shown example, the algae concentrate from the preconcentration system is further concentrated in two Vibro-I units. During these two steps, the retentate is mixed back into the flow (mix-flow) to achieve even higher concentrations.
Since the algae harvest is operated continuously, it is possible to operate the pond or reactor at the optimal exponential growth curve. The system continuously produces a highly concentrated product at 14.5 l/h from a feed stream of 6500 l/h.
Value adding processing and Heterotrophic Algae processes
Further value adding processing, high-end fractionation of homogenized algae concentrate, buffer exchange, and recovery of target molecules in permeate can be performed according to the application at hand.
Recovery and Concentration of Lysate Proteins
The concentrated algae can also be lysed for the recovery of intracellular proteins. In this case, the lysate first undergoes a microfiltration fractionation step in which cell debris is separated from the protein. After this, the proteins are gently concentrated and purified using ultrafiltration.
