Research Projects

Recent realization that linear system elevates carbon footprint relative to the carrying capacity of the earth is challenging global community to develop circular systems for efficient resource utilization (Doranova et al., 2016). Lately, sustainable production is gaining impetus as the chemical processes are energy intensive and has huge carbon footprint. Under this context, microalgae can offer renewable biomass for biocompounds production to promote sustainable development. It has garnered noteworthy attention due to wastewater remediation, carbon sequestration, and nutritional composition such as proteins (20-70%) and lipids (5-40%) (Van et al., 2021). Microalgae also contain fatty acids, antioxidants, β-carotene, and lutein that have critical role in different sectors. β-carotene is mainly produced through synthetic mean (96-97%) to cater demand and only 2-3% is produced from bioresource. However, there is promising scope for bioresource to be used for β-carotene production (Saini 2015). Microalgae offer exceptional competence to accumulate β-carotene under stress conditions. β-carotene is produced in highest quantity by Dunaliella salina and constitute about 10-14% DW under stress conditions (Lv et al., 2016). However, major factor hampering yield is expensive and time-consuming extraction processes reflecting need for green solvents. Deep eutectic solvent (DES) are green solvents formed by mixing of hydrogen bond acceptors and donors results in formation of solvent having lower melting point than individual component (Prabhune and Dey, 2023). The major advantage is that such formulation can be tuned to extract β-carotene without degrading sensitive compounds. Moreover, non-toxic nature of DESs solvents allows to utilize residual biomass as feed in aquaculture industry. Aquaculture is dependent on fish meal as feed and this dependence can be understood by 76% of captured fish is directed towards fish meal production. Additionally, fish meal ($1200/T) is three times expensive and accounts for >50% of operational cost in aquaculture (Kaur et al., 2023). As a result, economical and sustainable resource exhibiting noteworthy nutritional profile is crucial for aquaculture. Despite garnering attention for β-carotene production, integrated biorefinery potential of Dunaliella salina remains unexplored especially utilization of residual biomass as aquafeed. Additionally, effect of residual biomass on fish growth, survival and feed conversion ratio has not been fully explored. Few studies have been conducted to optimize DESs for selective extraction of β-carotene. Thus, the project is based on hypothesis that DESs will not only enhance extraction efficiency but also facilitate utilization of residual biomass for feed production. Therefore, adopting suitable approaches like green solvents and aquafeed production can certainly overcome economic feasibility of microalgae for industrial production and augment the model of circular bioeconomy.