A Review on Methods Used in Analysis of Microalgae Lipid Composition

Abstract

The present paper provides a brief overview of the most recent techniques for microalgae lipid analysis such as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), gas chromatography (GC), mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The application of HPLC technique is to break down lipid into smaller fractions such as neutral lipid and polar lipid. MS technique is known as less sensitive than GC technique thus requires coupling with other techniques in order to analyze the microalgae lipid. On the other hand, NMR technique provides comprehensive information on the molecular structure of microalgae lipid but it has disadvantage as the signals may overlap in the spectrum. Notably, GC coupled with flame ionization detector (FID) is the fundamental method which is fast with high accuracy when analyzing microalgae lipid.