I'm doing a project which requires me to extract oil from algae. This project is very small scale and I'm only mixing 1 mL of algae solution with 5 mL of acetone (hexane was not an option). I'm not sure what results to expect. Ideally, I want the algae cell wall to break so I can measure the oil content by mass or by separatory funnel. Any comments for whether or not this procedure makes sense and might actually work is appreciated.

That is the $100 billion dollar question. Figure out how to do it where it has a positive EROI and competitive to fossil fuel and you recieve $100 B

Good luck, no one has figured it out yet in the last 40 years.

To get the algae to the surface, you can easily rig up some sort of DAF process for cheap.

eunieex3:

I'm doing a project which requires me to extract oil from algae. This project is very small scale and I'm only mixing 1 mL of algae solution with 5 mL of acetone (hexane was not an option). I'm not sure what results to expect. Ideally, I want the algae cell wall to break so I can measure the oil content by mass or by separatory funnel. Any comments for whether or not this procedure makes sense and might actually work is appreciated.

First you gotta bust up the cells. I would recommend mechanical. The cheapest way is to buy a whole bunch of steel BB's and put it into a steel drum and shake high concentration algae until your arms hurt. Sonication is a better way but you need equipment.

Here is a paper discribing an easy method using Chloroform/MeOH. Then you can match it up with a stain such as Nile red which is cheap/easy way to see lipids under a simple fluoroscope.

When I was a kid, we did EtOH and then saponification after saponification until we got consistant results. Tho I must admit that I never did it with algae, it should work just the same as any other plant lipid. I did it with on cycads and liverworts but Im sure it would be the cheapest way to do it with lots of chemistry know how and no money.  

Here is a method using a centrifuge which is the way I would choose first if I had the equipment.

If you really are offering a billion $, I have a very cool method that is superior to anything on the market that Im gonna keep to myself until someone starts writing checks. It involves nanoparticles, catalysts, novel chemistry and some fancy process engineering. You know where to find me...

Thanks for the reply. Would using chloroform and staining lipids provide a quantitative measurement of the amount of lipids? And how much time should this take?

My situation right now:

By now, I have about 4-5 days to do something with four trials of 1 mL of algae immersed in 5 mL of acetone and 2 trials of 1 mL of algae settled at the bottom of 31 mL of water/food source (I was about to decant the excess water/food source and add acetone tomorrow, but it seems I should give up the acetone). I have enough algae to perform 1 more trial if need be.

I was just wondering what makes acetone a poor choice so, if my experiment should have to fail, I would have something to put in the discussion. Otherwise, is it possible at all to work with acetone?

eunieex3:

Would using chloroform and staining lipids provide a quantitative measurement of the amount of lipids? 

eunieex3:

  what makes acetone a poor choice

An example is the first paper I listed. There you will find over 6months of high level work that went into understanding the parameters working with MeOH and Chloroform and doing the proper sort of characterizations to get consistant results. It is NOT throwing stuff into a beaker and seeing what comes out but a thoughful experiment and explaination on why they think it works.

Do yourself a favor. Find someone elses extraction process and copy it with your algae and cite them. It will make you look smarter, promise.