Effect of Various Nitrogen Sources on Microalgal Growth and Lipid Content in Chlorella pyrenoidosa NCIM 2738 and ANK-1

The microalgae are unicellular photosynthetic organisms that use light energy and carbon dioxide, with higher photosynthetic efficiency than plants for the production of biomass (Benemann 1997, Miao, Wu, 2006). Microalgal lipids are regarded as the feedstock of future sustainable biodiesel production owing to much higher growth rates and photosynthetic efficiencies than conventional terrestrial plants (Chisti 2007; Li et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2008; Usui and Ikenouchi 1997). They may be destined to different applications, as biofuel production, purification of wastewater either autotrophic or mixotrophic conditions (Orús, et al., 1991, Mu ̃noz, et al., 2006) extractions of high added value foods and pharmaceutical products, or as food for aquaculture (Spolaore, et al., 2006). The energy crisis has now become one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Oil and natural gas storage all over the globe have been estimated to be depleted in 40 and 64 years, respectively (Vasudevan and Briggs, 2008). Microalgae biomass contains approximately 50% of carbon on a dry weight basis (Sánchez Mirón et al., 2003) and all the carbon present in cell usually from carbon dioxide. With the production of 100 tons of microalgae biomass, around 180 tons of CO2 can be International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 8 (2017) pp. 3099-3108 Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com