Abstract
Microalgae represent a source of protein with potential applications in human and animal nutrition, since they possess a good balance of amino-acids and low content of nucleic acids in comparison with other sources of protein. However, the low productivity of cultures has prevented production at a large scale. In this work, we studied the total production of protein in Chlorella vulgaris at a laboratory scale, analyzing different pre-established parameters under the carbon/nitrogen ratio. For this, we performed mixotrophic cultures during 5 days at different concentrations of acetate (5Mm, 10Mm, 20Mm) and sodium nitrate (0,97Mm, 1,94Mm, 2,94Mm). All treatments were kept at 23 ± 1ºC, with light/dark cycles of 12h: 12h for 5 days. The highest value of protein concentration was obtained from the culture R9 with a production of 0,78±0.18 g/L, 1.7 times higher than the production of the control culture treatment. (0,46 g/L). R9 was also the culture that consumed the most nitrogen (91%). Based on these results and their analysis, we found that the total content of protein in C. vulgaris is directly proportional to the amount of acetate and nitrate present in the culture media, since the algae grown in cultures where these nutrients were limited exhibited the lowest values in terms of protein concentration