Biomass productivity and fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) derived from intracellular lipid of a
Nannochloropsis
sp. isolated from Singapore’s coastal waters were studied under different light wave-lengths and intensities.
Nannochloropsis
sp., was grown in both phototrophic and mixotrophic (glycerolas the carbon source) culture conditions in three primary monochromatic light wavelengths, i.e., red,green and blue LEDs, and also in white LED. The maximum specific growth rate (
l
) for LEDs was blue>white>green>red.
Nannochloropsis
sp. achieved a
l
of 0.64 and 0.66d
1
in phototrophic andmixotrophic cultures under blue lighting, respectively. The intracellular fatty acid composition of
Nannochloropsis
sp. varied between cultures exposed to different wavelengths, although the absolutefatty acid content did differ significantly. Maximum FAME yield from
Nannochloropsis
sp. was 20.45%and 15.11% of dry biomass weight equivalent under photo- and mixotrophic culture conditions respec-tively for cultures exposed to green LED (550nm). However, maximum volumetric FAME yield wasachieved for phototrophic and mixotrophic cultures (i.e., 55.13 and 111.96mg/l, respectively) upon cellexposure to blue LED (470nm) due to highest biomass productivity. It was calculated that incrementalexposure of light intensity over the cell growth cycle saves almost 20% of the energy input relative tocontinuous illumination for a given light intensity.