Biofuel production from microalgae as feedstock: current status and potential

Abstract

Algal biofuel has become an attractive alternative of petroleum-based fuels in the past decade. Microalgae have been proposed as a feedstock to produce biodiesel, since they are capable of mitigating CO₂ emission and accumulating lipids with high productivity. This article is an overview of the updated status of biofuels, especially biodiesel production from microalgae including fundamental research, culture selection and engineering process development; it summarizes research on mathematical and life cycle modeling on algae growth and biomass production; and it updates global efforts of research and development and commercialization attempts. The major challenges are also discussed.

• Biofuel
• feedstock
• lipid
• microalgae
• modeling

Acknowledgements

We thank Xiao-ye Li for her help in laboratory and Jun-Hong Lv and Yang-Guang Chen for manuscript preparation.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.