Table 1.

Physicochemical composition of the most studied species of microalgae.

Physicochemical Composition	Species
	Chlorella vulgaris 1	Nannochloropsis gaditana 2	Arthrospira platensis 3	Auxenochlorella protothecoides 4	Euglena gracilis 5	Dunaliella bardawil 6	Tetraselmis chuii 7
Protein (% dry matter)	12–44	18–50	50–70	6–43	41–47	29–31	11–46
Lipid (% dry matter)	22–46	10–17	8–9.3	7–59	13–23	10–19	0.3–23
Carbohydrate (% dry matter)	24–39	15–31	13–48	15–35	34–43	11–12	30–54
Pigments
Lutein (mg/kg)	0.2–5	n.r	n.r	n.r	n.r	4.2–6.7	624
Chlorophyll (mg/L)	6–18	0.3–2.3	5–14	0.1–4	1–5.3	7.9–9.1	353–400
Phycocyanin (mg/mL)	n.r	n.r	0.5–2.3	n.r	n.r	n.r	n.r
Beta-carotene (mg/g)	n.r	0.1–2.9	n.r	0.1–1.1	0.1–52	0.8–1.5	0.1–1
Vitamins (mg/kg)
B2	20–34	25–62	34–81	n.r	n.r	n.r	5.3
B3	0.2–0.3	51–70	0.1–55	n.r	n.r	n.r	80
B9	0.7–1	17–26	2.6–7.9	n.r	n.r	n.r	200
B12	0.3–2.4	0.9–1.7	1.6 –3.2	n.r	n.r	0.42	78–195
E	n.r	n.r	n.r	n.r	0.2–1.6	1.5–2	0.2
C	n.r	n.r	n.r	n.r	0.9–1.3	1.8–2.2	0.8
Fatty acids (% total fatty acids)
C16:0 (palmitic)	20–30	13–41	43–57	11–25	14–16	15–17	19–36
C18:3 n-3 (alpha-linolenic)	22–24	0.9–3	1.3–23	2.4–30	0.1–0.3	22–31	22–28
C18:3 (linolenic)	26–28	0.3–7.4	14–19	22–35	n.r	3.2–3.7	n.r
C16:2 (hexadecadienoic)	12–23	0.1–2	2.2–6	0.4–3.5	1–2.5	12–14	1.8–5
C18:1 (oleic)	29–33	1.6–7.3	1–19	7.6–50	3.7–6.4	5.3–8.9	12.5–20

Information adapted from: ¹ Ran et al. [12]; Mehariya et al. [13]; Rodrigues-Sousa et al. [14]; ² Ran et al. [15]; Fattore et al. [16]; Nogueira et al. [17]; ³ Shanthi et al. [18]; Batista de Oliveira et al. [19]; Morais et al. [20]; ⁴ Xing et al. [21]; Polat et al. [22]; Bohutskyi et al. [23]; ⁵ Jung et al. [24]; Zhu et al. [25]; Kottuparambil et al. [26]; ⁶ Kumudha and Sarada [27]; Mixson Byrd and Burkholder [28]; Torres-Tiji et al. [7]; ⁷ Pereira et al. [29]; Schulze et al. [30]; Qazi et al. [31]. n.r—not reported.