ISOLATION AND EVALUATION OF MICROALGAL SPECIES FROM LOCAL HABITATS OF KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA FOR BIOFUEL PRODUCTION

Abstract

Microalgae plays a key role in the pursuit of sustainable energy as a promising source of biofuel, offering potential solutions to environmental challenges and contributing to the transition towards cleaner and renewable energy. This study was carried out to explore the biofuel potential of microalgal species isolated from different ecological regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Twenty-two different microalgal species were isolated from the Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshehra, Dir, Buner and Swat regions. Among the isolated species Chlorella vulgaris, Oedogonium capillare, Scenedesmus dimorphus, Desmodesmus communis and Nanochloropsis oculata were selected due to their high prevalence in these regions. The isolated species were grown on different growth media i.e. Bold Basal Media (BBM), Blue Green-11 (BG-11), Bristol and Guillard’s F/2 having varied concentrations (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%) and chemically analyzed for various biochemical traits through advance biochemical techniques. Media optimization for algal biomass showed that microalgal species grown on BBM had maximum biomass (51.77g), while minimum biomass (44.76g) was attained on BG media. Among the selected microalgal species, Chlorella vulgaris produced the maximum biomass (50.95g) however least biomass (44.81g) was produced by Scenedesmus dimorphus. In the case of media concentrations, maximum biomass (60.30g) was attained on 50% media, while lower biomass (32.98g) was attained on 10% media. The Physico-chemical properties of the selected species depicted that Nanochloropsis oculata from Buner area had a higher moisture content (30.3%) while Oedogonium capillare from the same area was high in ash content (27.5%), Chlorella vulgaris from Charsadda have high crude protein content (31%) while Nanochloropsis oculata from Swat had higher crude fiber (27.04%), Scenedesmus dimorphus from Dir have higher crude fat (17.8%) and the same species from Nowshehra revealed maximum NFE content (71.3%). The GC-MS analysis of selected microalgal species shows that these species contained appreciable amount of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids including Hexadecanoic acid (6.52%), Heptadecanoic acid (0.11%), Octadecanoic acid (41.87%), Docosanoic acid (0.72%), Tetracosanoic acid (1.01%) and 9, 12-Octadecadienoic acid (0.01%). Among the species, the highest biofuels were produced from the crude fat of Oedogonium capillare and Scenedesmus dimorphus therefore these species are recommended for commercial biofuel production.