| Summary: | Starch is the main component that belongs to two third of the human diet
pyramid and another one third of starch is used in non-food applications such as biofuel
and bioplastic. Products produced from starch are biodegradable and help in reducing
the environment pollution. However, environmental problem such as deforestation and
shortage of food will eventually happen if the demands of starch from non-food and
food products increase. Simultaneously, crops using as feedstocks for biofuel will
result in food versus fuel implication. To resolve this problem, the attentions of
researchers have been driven towards microalgae. The easy growing and
environmentally friendly microalgae has opened a new potential of revolution for
starch-based product. In this research two strains of marine microalgae have been
successfully isolated and screened from Penang Sea. Based on morphological and
molecular identification, these 2 strains are designated as Klebsormidium flaccidum
GN-2 and Nannochloropsis oculata YG-2. K. flaccidum GN-2 produced 16.84% of
starch and 0.81 g/L biomass while, N. oculata YG-2 produced 3.06% and 0.40 g/L
ofstarch and biomass, respectively. Microalgae K. flaccidum GN-2 was chosen for
optimization using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to increase production of
starch since it yield higher starch than Nannochloropsis oculata YG-2. The starch
produced was 19.06% under the optimized conditions of 35.53 ppt salinity, 23 hours
of light exposure and flow rate of 1 v/v of carbon dioxide.
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