Metal salts such as alum and ferric chloride are widely
used for flocculation in industries such as water treatment
and mining. Although metal salts are being applied for
harvesting microalgae (e.g., Dunaliella; [21]), their use
results in high concentrations of metals in the harvested
biomass. These metals remain in the biomass residue after
extraction of lipids or carotenoids [22]. The metals in the
biomass residue may however interfere with the use of the
protein fraction in this residue as animal feed. The valorization
of the protein fraction as animal feed is said to be
important for making microalgal biofuels economically
viable [23]. Despite this shortcoming, metal coagulants
provide a good model system to study the interaction
between flocculants and microalgal cells because their
properties are well understood [24,25].
Other commonly used chemical flocculants in other
industries are synthetic polyacrylamide polymers. These
may however contain traces of toxic acrylamide and
thus also contaminate the microalgal biomass [26]. Flocculants
based on natural biopolymers are therefore a safer
alternative. To be able to interact with the negative surface
charge of microalgal cells, these biopolymers should be
positively charged, which is rare in nature. A well-known
positively charged biopolymer is chitosan, which is derived
from chitin, a waste product from shellfish production.
Chitosan is a very efficient flocculant but it works
only at low pH, but pH in microalgal cultures is relatively
high [27]. An alternative to chitosan is cationic starch,
which is prepared from starch by addition of quaternary
ammonium groups. The charge of those quaternary ammonium
groups is independent of pH and therefore cationic
starch works over a broader pH range than chitosan [28].
Other examples of biopolymers than can be used to flocculate
microalgae are poly-g glutamic acid (an extracellular
polymer produced by Bacillus subtilis) [29] or polymers
present in flour from Moringa oleifera seeds [30]. A general
problem of polymer flocculants is that they undergo
coiling at high ionic strengths and become ineffective
[15]. Therefore, they are less suitable for harvesting microalgae
cultivated in seawater