Optimisation of critical medium components and culture conditions for enhanced biomass and lipid production in the oleaginous diatom Navicula phyllepta: a statistical approach.

Diatoms hold great promise as potential sources of biofuel production. In the present study, the biomass and lipid production in the marine diatom Navicula phyllepta, isolated from Cochin estuary, India and identified as a potential biodiesel feedstock, were optimized using Plackett-Burman (PB) statistical experimental design followed by central composite design (CCD) and response surface methodology (RSM). The growth analyses of the isolate in different nitrogen sources, salinities and five different enriched sea water media showed the best growth in the cheapest medium with minimum components using urea as nitrogen source at salinity between 25 and 40 g kg-1. Plackett-Burman experimental analyses for screening urea, sodium metasilicate, sodium dihydrogen phosphate, ferric chloride, salinity, temperature, pH and agitation influencing lipid and biomass production showed that silicate and temperature had a positive coefficient on biomass production, and temperature had a significant positive coefficient, while urea and phosphate showed a negative coefficient on lipid content. A 24 factorial central composite design (FCCD) was used to optimize the concentration of the factors selected. The optimized media resulted in 1.62-fold increase (64%) in biomass (1.2 ± 0.08 g L-1) and 1.2-fold increase (22%) in estimated total lipid production (0.11 ± 0.003 g L-1) compared to original media within 12 days of culturing. A significantly higher biomass and lipid production in the optimized medium demands further development of a two-stage strategy of biomass production followed by induction of high lipid production under nutrient limitation or varying culture conditions for large-scale production of biodiesel from the marine diatom.