**Conflict of interest**

The authors have declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this chapter.

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**Author details**

Durban, South Africa

Donald Tyoker Kukwa\* and Maggie Chetty

provided the original work is properly cited.

\*Address all correspondence to: tyokerdoo@gmail.com

Department of Chemical Engineering, Durban University of Technology,

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Microalgae: The Multifaceted Biomass of the 21st Century*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94090*

*Microalgae: The Multifaceted Biomass of the 21st Century DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94090*

*Biotechnological Applications of Biomass*

**5. Conclusions**

**Acknowledgements**

scientific investigations.

**Conflict of interest**

reported in this chapter.

of growth-inhibiting chemical agents [30]. Some of the biotic factors are the presence of pathogens (bacteria, fungi, viruses) and the presence of more than one algae strains. Each algae strain has a different capacity to assimilate nutrients, and in mixed cultures, there is competition for the available nutrients in the media, which may afferent the growth of some strains [36]. Process related factors that may influence algal growth are hydrodynamics of the culture broth, which is influenced by the choice of the bioreactor, the initial algal cell concentration in the reactor, and

There is a major difference between microalgae and cyanobacteria in terms of their cell structure and this work has presented unmistakable evidence that microalgae have a nucleus and chloroplast, and their makeup includes their full identity in a two-stranded DNA. On the other hand, cyanobacteria are identified by one-stranded DNA and do not have a nucleus and neither a chloroplast. However,

It is seen from research as discussed in this chapter that value products aimed to meet pharmaceutical and food needs are obtainable by continuous availability of nutrients to the microalgae in the culture media. It is also seen that to accumulate lipid in the order of triglycerides for biodiesel production, microalgae must experience nutrients deficiency in the culture media at the stationary stage of growth.

The hydrodynamics of the microalgal culture broth depends on the choice of bioreactor for a particular cultivation activity and contributes to the algal growth factor. The versatility of the microalgal biomass is expressed in the diversity of metabolites produced by manipulation of the growth factors in favor of the desired prod-

Microalgae and cyanobacteria do photosynthesize to produce their food.

uct. Also, the choice of the strain will drive towards the targeted product.

The authors appreciate the Institute for Water and Wastewater Technology (IWWT), Durban University of Technology, Durban for providing the platform for

The authors have declared that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work

the related frequency of harvesting algal biomass [57, 58].

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