Preliminary Environmental Assessment of the Cultivation of Microalgae Agroindustrial Residue

Microalgae are considered promising sources of raw material for biodiesel production. The cultivation of microalgae for obtaining biomass depends on several factors such as the amount of available nutrients, CO2, water, light, temperature and pH. The literature suggests the use of alternative nutrients for reducing the environmental impacts of biodiesel production from microalgae. This study aims to compare the environmental impact of microalgae cultivation with the synthetic nutrient Chu and effluent from cattle through the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) via SimaPro® 7.0 software, with a reference flow of 10 g of dry biomass. Using this methodology, it was demonstrated that environmental impacts such as eutrophication can be reduced by 57.2 % using the nutrients from the cattle effluent on the microalgae culture. Further studies should be conducted in the future in a systematic way in order to avoid exchange of environmental impacts.