A molecular study on the effects of osmotic pressure on the lipids of microalgae chlorella vulgaris

Microalgae is one of the best candidates for biofuel production owing to its numerous advantages over the other oil crops. However, challenges still exist in the entire production chain due to the high energy input on every process particularly in the drying stage. As such, this study will provide a theoretical explanation on drying algal biomass using Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations by means of osmosis. MD is a computer modeling tool that deals with the physical movement and behavior of atoms and molecules. It is most commonly used in modeling and analyzing biomolecular systems which has been a counterpart technique in the experiment and analytical theory for scientific discoveries and predictions. The general objective of the study is to investigate the mechanism of water extraction from an algal cell under the influence of osmotic pressure. The molecular structure of an algal cell was modeled using GROMACS and VMD software. These softwares are specifically designed to perform molecular dynamics on proteins, lipids and nucleic acids which have complicated bonds. The resulting area per lipid of 0.67 nm2 agrees well with other simulation and experimental results (Nagle et al., 2000; Marrink et al, 2004). Moreover, result on the net pressure difference of 17.3Mpa at room temp (300K) is needed to extract the water molecules across the lipid bilayer. As the discipline develops, it may transpire a new technique and further opens a wide perspective in providing information based from the simulation results which can be used in the analysis of laboratory experiments