Lipid Production by Arctic Microalga Chlamydomonas sp. KNF0008 at Low Temperatures Eun Jae Kim 1,2 & Woongsic Jung 1,3 & Suyoun Lim 1,4 & Sanghee Kim 1 & Han-Gu Choi 1 & Se Jong Han 1,2 Received: 13 August 2018 /Accepted: 5 November 2018/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018 Abstract A lipid-producing microalga, Chlamydomonas sp. KNF0008, collected from the Arctic was capable of growing at temperatures ranging from 4 to 20 °C, and the highest cell density was measured at 15 °C and 100 μmol photons m -2 s -1 light intensity under continuous shaking and external aeration. KNF0008 showed the elevated accumulation of lipid bodies under nitrogen- deficient conditions, rather than under nitrogen-sufficient conditions. Fatty acid production of KNF0008 was 4.2-fold (104 mg L -1 ) higher than that of C. reinhardtii CC-125 at 15 °C in Bold’ s Basal Medium. The dominant fatty acids were C16:0, C16:4, C18:1, and C18:3, and unsaturated fatty acids (65.69%) were higher than saturated fatty acids (13.65%) at 15 °C. These results suggested that Arctic Chlamydomonas sp. KNF0008 could possibly be utilized for production of biodiesel during periods of cold weather because of its psychrophilic characteristics. Keywords Arctic . Chlamydomonas . Lipid . Microalga . Psychrophile Introduction Microalgae are photosynthetic unicellular organisms living as individual or chain-forming cells ranged from 50 μm or less in length. These microorganisms have a high growth rate and produce oil as a raw material for biodiesel [1, 2]. Microalgae show high rates of oil productivity per unit area; they can be cultured in the regions where grain cultivation is impossible and have excellent photosynthetic efficiency [3]. Microalgae produce unsaturated fatty acids that have a low freezing point making them a good raw material for valuable bio-products [4]. The oil produced by microalgae can be converted to biodiesel through a transesterification process wherein triglyceride is coupled with alcohol in the presence of acid or alkaline catalysts, Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-018-2921-1 Eun Jae Kim and Woongsic Jung contributed equally to this work. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12010-018- 2921-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Se Jong Han hansj@kopri.re.kr Extended author information available on the last page of the article