Abstract
There has been increasing interest in the production of sustainable fuels from microalgae. In this work the effect of ultrasonic wave on suspensions of Chaetoceros gracilis has been investigated at the frequencies 20, 400 and 1000 kHz. Results showed that the reduction in algal numbers is dependent on both frequency and acoustic power. The order of the efficiency of the ultrasonic control of Chaetoceros gracilis at different frequencies is 400 < 20 < 1000 KHz. The results suggest that the sonication can offer a suitable method for algae disruption but the sonication conditions must be taken into ccount. We discuss the fequency dependence of algae disruption with mechanical resonances of both the algae cell and bubble oscillating in ultrasonic fields.
