Fatty acid profiles of the microalgae strains were deduced by comparison with a 37 FAME mix standard (i.e. Supelco 37 FAME mix, C4-C24). Each sample was spiked with n-heptadecanoic acid (C17:0) to a final concentration of 1 ppm as an internal standard. The capillary column of the GC/MS was a DB-5MS, of 30 m length, a film thickness of 0.25 mm and an internal diameter of 0.25 mm. Helium was used as the carrier gas. The oven temperature and injection temperature were set at 50 C and 280 C respectively. The temperature program of the GC was held at 50C for 2min and then increased to 150 C at a rate of 10 C min1, then to 185 C for 2 min and finally to 300 C for 2 min