| Dunaliella salina is a species of photosynthetic microalgae that grow naturally in seawater. This alga is capable of producing zeaxanthin, which is a carotenoid pigment. It has applications in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and healthcare industries. While working towards my Masters' thesis, I have conducted experiments to determine the optimum parameters for culturing Dunaliella salina and zeaxanthin growth within algae cells using a continuous process as opposed to the two-stage process, which was used until now. The optimum growth conditions for the continuous process are high carbon dioxide concentrations (20--30%) and high light irradiation (on the order of 9000 Lux). It is conjectured that this model system using one stage culture can be implemented to the production of Haematococcus pluvialis for the mass production of astaxanthin. |
