Isolation, purification and identification of microalgae from coal-fired power plant environment

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) through biological approach has attracted much attention as global warming and climate change issue becomes a worldwide agenda. Energy production industry from coal in Malaysia produced 50.661 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2012, and the trend showed it will keep increasing year by year. CCS through biological approach can be done by microalgae which are versatile microorganism which perform photosynthesis process that can store CO2 in the biomass form. In this study, microalgae strains were isolated from the native environment nearby a coal-fired power plant, where samples were collected in different canal in which pre-treated flue gases are discharged. The microalgae strains were identified by both morphological and molecular approaches. Result from 18s rRNA gene sequencing showed that the isolated strains is Chlorella sp. with similarity 99% with Chlorella sp. SAG 211-18. The identified strains of microalgae then cultivated with three concentration of CO2 (ambient air, 1% and 5%) and the growth rate showed 0.4017 day-1 , 0.5752 day-1 and 0.4427 day-1 respectively. Different concentration of CO2 (ambient air, 1% and 5%) showed that the isolated strains yielded 1.005gL-1 , 1.101gL-1 and 1.035gL-1 respectively. This study also showed that with different concentration of CO2, the sequestration rate is ranging from 1% to 4.3%