In this study, we report the enhancement of enzymatic cell wall disruption using polymer for lipid and reducing sugar recover.
Results indicate that polymers were also able to disrupt microalgal cell walls for lipid extraction without enzymes, but unable to hydrolyze cell walls. With the presence of A , 68% and 33% cell disruption can be achieved with and without enzyme, respectively, resulting in respective liquid and reducing sugar yields of 59% and 50% (g/g reducing sugar/dry algal cell wall). The use of polymer in addition to enzymes results in faster cell disruption with higher breakdown efficiency for improve lipid yield. The polymer was shown to function by i) stressing and disrupting the cell wall to improve the susceptibility to enzyme cleavage and ii) protecting the enzyme from denaturation. The use of thermoresponsive polymer provide a simple and energy-efficient approach to recovering biofuels and bioproducts from microalga. Importantly, the polymer can readily be recovered and reuse.