The Role of Heterotrophic Microalgae in Waste Conversion to Biofuels and Bioproducts

In the last few decades, microalgae have attracted attention from scientific community worldwide, being considered a promising feedstock for renewable energy production, as well wide range of high value-added products such pigments and poly-unsaturated fatty acids pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, food, cosmetic markets. Despite investments in biotechnology to date, major obstacle its commercialization is cost microalgal biomass production expensive product extraction steps. One way reduce costs use low-cost production. Some wastes contain organic inorganic components that may serve nutrients algal growth, decreasing culture media and, thus, overall process costs. Most research studies on waste treatment autotrophic mixotrophic growth. Research heterotrophic treat still scarce, although this cultivation mode shows several benefits over others, higher carbon load tolerance, intracellular stability all year round, regardless location climate. review article, simultaneously produce bioproducts biofuels will be discussed, critically analyzing most recent done area so far envisioning approach commercial scale near future.