Affiliations 

  • 1 HICoE-Centre for Biofuel and Biochemical Research, Institute of Self-Sustainable Building, Department of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia
  • 2 Department of Pharmaceutics, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, P.O. Box 2457, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
  • 3 Department of Clinical Laboratory Sciences, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 10219, Riyadh 11433, Saudi Arabia
  • 4 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Yuan Ze University, Taoyuan, Taiwan. Electronic address: kuanshiong.khoo@saturn.yzu.edu.tw
  • 5 HICoE-Centre for Biofuel and Biochemical Research, Institute of Self-Sustainable Building, Department of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia; Department of Biotechnology, Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai 602105, India. Electronic address: junwei.lim@utp.edu.my
  • 6 HICoE-Centre for Biofuel and Biochemical Research, Institute of Self-Sustainable Building, Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia
  • 7 Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Technology, Silpakorn University, Nakhon Pathom 73000, Thailand. Electronic address: kiatkittipong_w@su.ac.th
  • 8 Research Institute of Environment & Biosystem, Chungnam National University, Yuseonggu, Daejeon, 34134, Republic of Korea
  • 9 Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan
  • 10 Department of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610, Seri Iskandar, Perak Darul Ridzuan, Malaysia
Environ Res, 2023 Apr 01;222:115352.
PMID: 36716802 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2023.115352

Abstract

The capacity to maximize the proliferation of microalgal cells by means of topologically textured organic solid surfaces under various pH gave rise to the fundamental biophysical analysis of cell-surface attachment in this study. The substrate used in analysis was palm kernel expeller (PKE) in which the microalgal cells had adhered onto its surface. The findings elucidated the relevance of surface properties in terms of surface wettability and surface energy in relation to the attached microalgal growth with pH as the limiting factor. The increase in hydrophobicity of PKE-microalgae attachment was able to facilitate the formation of biofilm better. The pH 5 and pH 11 were found to be the conditions with highest and lowest microalgal growths, respectively, which were in tandem with the highest contact angle value at pH 5 and conversely for pH 11. The work of attachment (Wcs) had supported the derived model with positive values being attained for all the pH conditions, corroborating the thermodynamic feasibility. Finally, this study had unveiled the mechanism of microalgal attachment onto the surface of PKE using the aid of extracellular polymeric surfaces (EPS) from microalgae. Also, the hydrophobic nature of PKE enabled excellent attachment alongside with nutrients for microalgae to grow and from layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly. This assembly was then isolated using organosolv method by means of biphasic solvents, namely, methanol and chloroform, to induce detachment.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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