Manual pressing of nannochloropsis oculata dried biomass for enhanced lipid extraction

Microalgae offer significant potential to produce high value products and biofuels, whilst simultaneously being used to bio-remediate water or capture carbon dioxide (CO2). Microalgal cell disruption processes are often necessary to increase lipid extraction from microalgae before conventional solvent extraction processes are used to isolate lipids. The extracted lipids can be processed to produce biofuels. The combinations of hydraulic pressing with liquid nitrogen (LN2) treatment were applied to samples of dried Nannochloropsis oculata in the presented study to enhance the cellular destruction and lipid yields. The results indicated higher lipid extraction with LN2 treatment (0.159 g/g dry algae) compared to the LN2 untreated samples (0.070 g/g dry algae). The corresponding cell disruptions were found to be seventy-eight and fifty percent, respectively, at the same 10 bar (145 psi) pressure level. The control sample (without any treatment) lipid yield was 0.006 g/g dry algae, while the lipid yield varied between 0.192-0.213 g/g dry algae with LN2 treated biomass with pressure loadings of 70-100 bar (1015-1450 psi) and with a corresponding cell disruption of 93-98 percent. The presence of palmitate, oleate and linoleate found in the fatty acid methyl ester composition of the extracted lipids, shows a favourable profile to produce biodiesel

Financial Capacity and Willingness of Farmers to pay for Irrigation Services in the Post-reform Scenario in Pakistan: Two Case Studies

To eliminate the subsidy on the canal irrigation system, the Government of Pakistan has decided to reform the management, intending to make it more efficient, equitable, transparent, and able to take care of the sustainability of the world’s largest contiguous irrigation network. The water users are being entrusted with greater role in the management through the formation of Farmers’ Organisations (FOs) to operate and maintain secondary canals and pay for full cost of water delivery. Ultimate payer will be the farmer. The economic viability of the reforms, therefore, much depends on farmers’ ability and willingness to pay for the cost of irrigation water delivery, which is expected to rise. This paper estimates financial liabilities of the farmers in the post-reform scenario, and assesses their capacity and willingness to pay for liabilities in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh. One distributary in each of the two provinces is studied as the reference distributary, where FOs have already been formed. The cost of desired level of operation and maintenance levels are worked out using secondary data for 1997-98. With these costs, the water users in the Punjab and Sindh provinces need to pay Rs 333 and Rs 373 per ha for their water service, respectively. The estimated O&M costs form about 5.4 and 3 percent of production costs and 3.8 and 3.5 percent of the net income in the Punjab and Sindh provinces respectively. The farmers’ net income from crop enterprise is higher than the cost of water. Thus, an average farmer has the potential to pay for water. Recent experience of Hakra 4-R Distributary FO suggests that the farmers are also willing to pay for water service, if they are organised properly.

Institutional reforms for agricultural water management

Irrigation managementDrainageParticipatory management