Flocculation of wall-deficient cells of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii mutant cw15 by calcium and methanol

Flocculation is a common and inexpensive method for harvesting algae from solution. After nitrogen starvation, it was shown that 83 ± 3% of the wall-deficient cells of the cw 15 mutant of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii flocculated from 12 mL samples within 15 min after the addition of 15 mM calcium chloride at pH 8.4. Only 24 ± 2% of the wildtype strain flocculated under these conditions, thus demonstrating how a simple mutation might facilitate process design. The data suggested that algae grown in waters with similar calcium concentrations (e.g. certain wastewaters) might be harvested through simple pH adjustment. It was also discovered that the addition of small amounts (