Assessing the salt tolerance of Spirulina platensis freshwater strains and examining cheap culture media for cultivation of the potential strain

Spirulina cyanobacteria have been widely cultivated to exploit products such as crude protein, vitamins, phycocyanin pigment... with high nutritional and pharmacological values. However, the commercialization of these is still a challenging issue due biomass cost, which mainly caused by expensive nutrients in culture medium. In this study, from 11 freshwater S. platensis strains, screening, we found 7 strains being capable profitable growth on inexpensive seawater salinity ranging 5 - 30‰, selected ST strain potential for further study. Natural must be pretreated remove ions that easily cause precipitation medium Mg2+, Ca2+, SO42-… before using. The showed best natural 30‰ containing 3 g/L NaNO3, 0.5 K2HPO4, 0.05 FeSO4. This reached highest yield at 0.487 specific rate (µ) 0.12 x day-1; protein contents 48.6% 127 mg/g dry biomass, respectively. There was no difference mentioned above values biological statistical significance between SOT distilled water. qualified used production functional foods. Results study provided scientific basis use marine brackish waters produce highly economic cyanobacterium.