A vacuum drying characterization and optimization of spirulina sp. using definitive screening design of experiment

• Main Author: Ronquillo, Christian Joseph C.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2017
• Subjects: Microalgae
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_masteral/5702
• Institution: De La Salle University

These days, the number of people in the world increases every day. And in some parts of the world, an increase in demand for food nutrition is needed for them to survive. However, those countries suffer from under nutrition do not have enough supply to secure their nutritional food. Potentially, microalgae are one of the new source of nutritional food that can supply the needs of people today. However, the production of nutraceutical product using microalgae have some bottlenecks to observe. One of which is the drying process, where the temperature needs to be limited in order to have maximum quantities of protein and vitamins for its product. Also, the drying process is an energy intensive method that needs to observe its energy consumption. With the used of vacuum dying process, it can observed both the energy consumption and can limit the temperature of the drying. This study is proposed to characterize and to optimize the drying process of microalgae using vacuum drying process. The microalgae strain to be used is Spirulina sp. and Definitive Screening Design of experiment is used to achieve the objectives which are to maximize the response output of protein quantification, drying rate and to minimize the output of energy consumption. The 3 level factors used in the experiment are oven temperature (40, 55, 70 0C), diameter of microalgae (1, 3, 5 mm), and pressure inside the oven (101.325, 67.461, 33.597 kPa). In conclusion, the design was performed significantly having an model develop to have an optimal conditions of 700C temperature, 1mm diameter, and 33.597 kPa pressure. Also, the predicted empirical equation was determined in each of the response output. There was no interaction between each of the factors and it resulted to have a linear type of equation. Moreover, the diameter factor shows a significant reaction in all of the response output. Lastly, the results were promising that it can be suggested to be used in as a drying process in a microalgae production plant.