The development and evaluation of engineering strategies to enhance microbial oil production for industrial applications
type: CreativeWork
description: Over the last few decades, microbial oils have gained the attention of researchers worldwide for their potential as sustainable and renewable alternatives to current oil sources. The extensive research into these microorganisms has discovered that microbial oil production offers multiple advantages over current commercial oil sources such as the utilisation of various carbon sources for cultivation (including industrial wastes and by-products), high volumetric production and seasonally independent production. Large-scale microbial oil production has been successful for the production of high value oils such as those rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) however, commercial production of microbial oil remains hindered by the complexity and high operating costs associated with the process. This renders production economically inviable for mid- or low-value products. Given the extensive research performed on oleaginous microorganisms, strain selection can be complicated and overwhelming. Therefore, a pre-optimised objective function was developed to qualitatively analyse disparate literature data to score and select a set of preliminary production strains for consideration. High sensitivity to changes in literature data, as well as the uncertainty associated with it, highlighting the need for a second screening phase whereby selected strains are experimentally compared. Experimental comparison highlighted the need for more descriptive selection criteria in the objective function and was successful in selecting strains with high biomass and lipid production capabilities for large-scale production and further study in this dissertation. Rapid and efficient lipid quantification techniques are required to monitor lipid accumulation and optimise lipid extraction time, given that oleaginous microorganisms consume their accumulated lipids under extracellular carbon limitation. Gravimetric determination of total lipid content using the Folch method is considered a resear…
abstract: Over the last few decades, microbial oils have gained the attention of researchers worldwide for their potential as sustainable and renewable alternatives to current oil sources. The extensive research into these microorganisms has discovered that microbial oil production offers multiple advantages over current commercial oil sources such as the utilisation of various carbon sources for cultivation (including industrial wastes and by-products), high volumetric production and seasonally independent production. Large-scale microbial oil production has been successful for the production of high value oils such as those rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) however, commercial production of microbial oil remains hindered by the complexity and high operating costs associated with the process. This renders production economically inviable for mid- or low-value products. Given the extensive research performed on oleaginous microorganisms, strain selection can be complicated and overwhelming. Therefore, a pre-optimised objective function was developed to qualitatively analyse disparate literature data to score and select a set of preliminary production strains for consideration. High sensitivity to changes in literature data, as well as the uncertainty associated with it, highlighting the need for a second screening phase whereby selected strains are experimentally compared. Experimental comparison highlighted the need for more descriptive selection criteria in the objective function and was successful in selecting strains with high biomass and lipid production capabilities for large-scale production and further study in this dissertation. Rapid and efficient lipid quantification techniques are required to monitor lipid accumulation and optimise lipid extraction time, given that oleaginous microorganisms consume their accumulated lipids under extracellular carbon limitation. Gravimetric determination of total lipid content using the Folch method is considered a resear…
author: Nunes, Darne Derrica
language: en
date published: 2026-03
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:40:14Z
provider: Stellenbosch University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University