Haematococcus is a green algae (Chlorophyta), mobile, single-celled, and capable of synthe­sizing and accumulating the pigment astaxanthin in response to environmental conditions, reaching from 1.5% up to 6% by weight astaxanthin (Vanessa Ghiggi, 2007). The astaxanthin produced by Haematococcus pluvialis is about 70% monoester, 25% diesters, and 5% free (Lorenz and Cysewski, 2000).

These algae, however, have some undesirable characteristics compared to other microalgae grown successfully on a commercial scale. The biggest concern is mainly related to a relatively slow growth rate, allowing easy contamination. Therefore, many studies have sought to improve the low rate of growth of vegetative cells, which is, exceptionally, 1.20 div/day (Gonzales et al., 2009).

Alternatively, its mixotrophic (Guerin et al., 2003; Gonzales et al., 2009) and heterotrophic (Hata et al., 2001) metabolism, using acetate as carbon source, has also been studied and documented; however, these conditions have not been applied to commercial-scale cultures and are not interesting in terms of carbon fixation.