Microalgal Production of Biofuels Integrated with Wastewater Treatment

Applications of microalgal biofilms for wastewater treatment and bioenergy production

BACKGROUND Microalgae have shown clear advantages for the production of biofuels compared with energy crops. Apart from their high growth rates and substantial lipid/triacylglycerol yields, microalgae can grow in wastewaters (animal, municipal and mining wastewaters) efficiently removing their primary nutrients (C, N, and P), heavy metals and micropollutants, and they do not compete with crops ...

Co-Cultivation of Fungal and Microalgal Cells as an Efficient System for Harvesting Microalgal Cells, Lipid Production and Wastewater Treatment

The challenges which the large scale microalgal industry is facing are associated with the high cost of key operations such as harvesting, nutrient supply and oil extraction. The high-energy input for harvesting makes current commercial microalgal biodiesel production economically unfeasible and can account for up to 50% of the total cost of biofuel production. Co-cultivation of fungal and micr...

Algal Biofilm Production and Harvesting System for Wastewater Treatment with Biofuels By-Products

Life-Cycle Assessment of Microalgal-Based Biofuels

Fossil fuel depletion and attempts of global warming mitigation have motivated the development of biofuels. Several feedstock and transformation pathways into biofuel have been proposed as an alternative to usual fuels. Recently, microalgae have attracted a lot of attention because of the promise of reduced competition with food crop and lowered environmental impacts. Over the last years, sever...

The promise and challenges of microalgal - derived biofuels †

Microalgae offer great promise to contribute a signifi cant portion of the renewable fuels that will be required by the Renewable Fuels Standard described in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act of the United States. Algal biofuels would be based mainly on the high lipid content of the algal cell and thus would be an ideal feedstock for high energy density transportation fuels, such as...