Spirulina Platensis Arthrospira: Physiology, Cell-Biology And Biotechnology

252 Pages·1997·2.57 MB·English

by  Avigad Vonshak

Spirulina platensis
(Arthrospira)

Spirulina platensis
(Arthrospira)
Physiology, cell-biology and biotechnology
Edited by
AVIGAD VONSHAK
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel
UK Taylor & Francis Ltd, 1 Gunpowder Square, London EC4A 3DE
USA Taylor & Francis Inc., 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Ltd 1997
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic
tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the copyright owner.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-7484-0674-3 (cased)
Library of Congress Cataloging Publication Data are available
Cover design by Youngs Design in Production
ISBN 0-203-48396-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-79220-3 (Glassbook Format)
To my family: my parents Chaia and Nachman; my wife
Ahuva and boys Itai and Ohad for their trust,
support and love

Contents
Preface ix
Foreword xi
Contributors xv
1 Morphology, Ultrastructure and Taxonomy of Arthrospira (Spirulina)
maxima and Arthrospira (Spirulina) platensis 1
Luisa Tomaselli
2 The Photosynthetic Apparatus of Spirulina: Electron Transport and
Energy Transfer 17
Prasanna Mohanty, Madhulika Srivastava and Kolli Bala Krishna
3 Spirulina: Growth, Physiology and Biochemistry 43
Avigad Vonshak
4 Genetics of Spirulina 67
Ajay K.Vachhani and Avigad Vonshak
5 Outdoor Mass Production of Spirulina: The Basic Concept 79
Avigad Vonshak
6 Tubular Bioreactors 101
Giuseppe Torzillo
7 Cultivation of Spirulina (Arthrospira) platensis in Flat Plate Reactors 117
Mario R.Tredici and Graziella Chini Zittelli
8 Mass Culture of Spirulina Outdoors—The Earthrise Farms Experience 131
Amha Belay
vii
Contents
9 Mass Cultivation and Wastewater Treatment Using Spirulina 159
Gilles Laliberté, Eugenia J.Olguin and Joël de la Noüe
10 The Chemicals of Spirulina 175
Zvi Cohen
11 Use of Spirulina Biomass 205
Avigad Vonshak
Appendices 213
Avigad Vonshak
Index 227
viii
Preface
Spirulina, or what was most likely Arthrospira, was rediscovered in the mid-1960s.
A report by a botanist, Jean Léonard, who was a member of a French-Belgian expedition
to Africa, described a blue-green cake sold in the food market of Fort Lamy, Chad.
A further study revealed that this cake, called in the local dialect dihé, contained a
blue-green alga identified as Spirulina and was consumed by the Kanembu tribe living
along the alkaline lakes of Chad and Niger. Earlier reports in 1940 on the use of
dihé had passed without any further notice.
At about the same time that Leonard had discovered Spirulina in Africa, a request
was received from a company named Sosa Texcoco, by the Institut Français du Pétrole
to study a bloom of algae occurring in the evaporation ponds of their sodium bicarbonate
production facility in a lake near Mexico city. As a result, the first systematic and
detailed study of the growth requirements and physiology of Spirulina was performed.
This study, which was part of a Ph.D. thesis by Zarrouk, was the basis for establishing
the first large-scale production plant of Spirulina. Nevertheless, most of the work
never reached the attention of the international scientific community. If I may make
personal comment, it is my impression that this was because the thesis was published
in French and was never translated into English.
In a way, establishing the production site of Spirulina in Mexico was a kind of
closing of a circuit. Some four hundred years before Sosa Texcoco had started the
commercial production of Spirulina, in the sixteenth century, when the Spanish invaders
conquered Mexico, they discovered that the Aztecs living in the Valley of Mexico in
the capital Tenochtitlan were collecting a ‘new food’ from the lake. This food, described
as a blue-green cake and called by the locals tecuitlatl, was used in a similar way to
that for dihé of the Kanembu. Although no clear evidence is available on the exact
composition of this food, it is clear that it contained a blue-green alga, and up to the
present day Spirulina maxima is the dominant species in those waters.
So, from a semi-natural production facility in the early 1970s with a big variation
in annual production from 100 to 400 tonnes, 25 years later Spirulina reached a total
annual production exceeding 1000 tonnes per year with a forecast of doubling its
market by the end of this century.
ix