International Science Community Association International Research Journal of Biological Sciences 2278-3202 8 9 2019 09 10 A novel, low cost, sterilizable and disposable in-house culture vessel for laboratory study of microalgae cultures 26 31 EN T.M. Simon 1 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Chester, UK Acharya C.P. 1 P.G. Department of Zoology, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar - 751 004 Odisha, India Bhattacherjee A. 2 P.G. Department of Zoology, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar - 751 004 Odisha, India Mallik B.K. 3 Central Poultry Development Organisation, (ER), Bhubaneswar- 751 012 Odisha, India Mohanty P.K. 4 P.G. Department of Zoology, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar - 751 004 Odisha, India Darshna K. Patel 1 Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, School of Sciences, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad 380009, Gujarat, India Devayani R. Tipre 2 Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, School of Sciences, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad 380009, Gujarat, India Shailesh R. Dave 3 Xavier's Research Foundation, Loyola Centre for Research and Dev., St. Xavier College Campus, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India Vishal Paul 1 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Vinay Dwivedi 2 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Nishant Saxena 3 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Santosh Kodgire 4 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Yogesh Chudasama 5 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Hardik Chawada 6 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Desai 7 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Dishant 8 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Suguna Shanmugasundaram 9 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Sambandham Shanmugasundaram 10 Research and Development, Reliance Industries Ltd, Jamnagar-361140, India Debanjan Sanyal 11 Research and Development, Reliance Corporate Park, Ghansoli, Mumbai-400709, India Santanu Dasgupta 12 > Research Paper 2019 3 22 2019 09 10 Algal industry is expanding as a source of energy, food, feed, recombinant proteins and high value chemicals. As the research need is increasing, many laboratories are getting involved. Photobioreactors are used to achieve uniform light illumination and CO2 supply to achieve faster algal growth. Use of commercially available PBR in algal study is limited to few highly funded laboratories due to large initial capital requirement and high operational cost. To address the issue of uniform light illumination and CO2 supply at low cost, an In-house Culture Vessel (ICV) has been designed and the algal growth was compared between ICV vs. conventional 20L carboys which are generally used in lab for relatively larger quantity of inoculum development. An in-built air-sparger has been provided to achieve both air lift mixing of culture and CO2 supply. The well mixed culture with high surface area allows uniform light illumination. Picochlorum sp. was grown in the designed culture vessel and in conventional carboys. Growth rate in ICV was 16 times more as compared to carboy. This enhanced growth rate indicates more and/or even availability of light to algal cells in ICV compared to carboy as the starting nutrient level was same in both. Growth rate of 0.16 OD/day even at 35 OD in ICV indicates that the culture of Picochlorum sp is still in growing phase in ICV whereas the same culture reached stationary phase in the 20L carboy at 3.73 OD with negligible growth rate of 0.02 OD/day. The proven fact of chlorophyll a/b ratio adjustment in response to light was observed as well with maintained Nitrogen level for Picochlorum sp. The In-House Culture Vessel was demonstrated to be a promising and inexpensive tool which could be used as a closed system for developing actively growing high density microalgae cultures at laboratory scale for further studies. Copyright@ International Science Community Association