Biodiesel fuels microalgae

It has been concluded that microalgal biodiesel is the only renewable biodiesel that has the potential to completely displace liquid transport fuels derived from petroleum. Existing demand for liquid transport fuels could be met sustainably with biodiesel from microalgae, but not with bioethanol from sugarcane (17). 

Johnson MB, Wen Z. Production of biodiesel fuel from the microalga Schizochytrium limacinum by direct transesterification of algal biomass. Energy Fuels 2009 23 5179. 

Roessler, P.G., Brown, L.M., Dunahay, T.G., Heacox, D.A., Jarvis, E.E., Schneida-, J.C., Talbot, S.G., Zeiler, K.G., 1994. Genetic engineering approaches for enhanced production of biodiesel fuel from microalgae. ACS Symp. Ser. 566, 255-270 (Enzymatic conversion of biomass for fuels production). 

As a sustainable and renewable energy source, microalgae are the only source of biodiesel currently meeting the global demand for transport fuels [2,34—36]. Except... 

Tables 6 contains, respectively, the properties of FAMES collected from the literature and the results of the prediction of quality parameters of oleaginous yeast and microalgae (Lacerda et al. 2013) compared with the American, European, and Brazilian standards. The values of heat of combustion (HC), index of oxidative stability (OSI) and iodine value (II) are out of limits imposed by these standards, however, the values of density (p), viscosity (u) and cetane number (CN) are within it. Even though the indexes are slightly out of bounds, the biodiesel obtained from Chlorella vulgaris and Lipomyces starkeyi may still be used as fuel.

The oleaginous nature of microalgae allows them to biosynthesize lipids with a commercial interest for biofuel, nutritional supplements, and pharmaceutical applications. Generating biodiesel, bioethanol, and bio jet fuel from microalgae as a replacement for their fossil fuel-based coxmterparts has been an ongoing quest since the early 1960s and has been explored in... 

Currently, the main raw materials used to produce biodiesel are the vegetable oils extracted from oleaginous plants. The cost of these materials currentiy represents about 70% of the total production costs. This means that the most suitable vegetable oils are those from crops with the highest productivity per hectare or low-cost oils such as waste oils. These days, the high fossil fuel prices, the collapse of food for biodiesel initiatives, and concerns about increased levels of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere have all created awareness of the need for alternative fuel solutions. Microalgae have optimistically emerged as one of the potential lowest-cost feedstocks for biodiesel production (Robles-Medina et al., 2009). 

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