BACKGROUND Recent studies have demonstrated that microalga has been widely regarded as one of the most promising raw materials of biofuels. However, lack of an economical, efficient and convenient method to harvest microalgae is a bottleneck to boost their full-scale application. Many methods of harvesting microalgae, including mechanical, electrical, biological and chemical based, have been st...

There has been a recent resurgent interest in microalgae as an oil producer for biofuel applications. An adequate supply of nutrients and carbon dioxide enables algae to successfully transform light energy of the sun into energy rich chemical compounds through photosynthesis. A strain with high lipids, successfully grown and harvested, could provide oil for most of our process by volume, which ...

Increasing petroleum costs and climate change have resulted in microalgae receiving attention as potential biofuel producers. Little information is available on the diversity and functions of bacterial communities associated with biofuel-producing algae. A potential biofuel-producing microalgal strain, Nannochloropsis oceanica IMET1, was grown in Permian groundwater. Changes in the bacterial co...

The excess biomass of drifting algae and their casting to the Baltic Sea coast imposes a significant environmental burden. analysis beach-cast showed that dominant species are macroalgae Ulva sp., Furcellaria lumbricalis, Cladophora Polysiphonia fucoides. algae, containing 25.6% 19.98% sugars, respectively, has greatest resource potential in terms obtaining carbohydrates. Fucose, glucose, galac...

In the era of energy and food shortage, microalgae have gained much attention as promising sources of biofuels and food ingredients. However, only a small fraction of microalgal genes have been functionally characterized. Here, we have developed the Algae Gene Coexpression database (ALCOdb; http://alcodb.jp), which provides gene coexpression information to survey gene modules for a function of ...

Diatoms, considered as one of the most diverse and largest groups of algae, can provide the means to reach a sustainable production of petrochemical substitutes and bioactive compounds. However, a prerequisite to achieving this goal is to increase the solar-to-biomass conversion efficiency of photosynthesis, which generally remains less than 5% for most photosynthetic organisms. We have develop...

Microalgae offer great potential as a third-generation biofuel feedstock, especially when grown on wastewater, as they have the dual application for wastewater treatment and as a biomass feedstock for biofuel production. The potential for growth on wastewater centrate was evaluated for forty microalgae strains from fresh (11), brackish (11), or saltwater (18) genera. Generally, freshwater strai...

The increased demand and consumption of fossil fuels have raised interest in finding renewable energy sources throughout the globe. Much focus has been placed on optimizing microorganisms and primarily microalgae, to efficiently produce compounds that can substitute for fossil fuels. However, the path to achieving economic feasibility is likely to require strain optimization through using avail...

Microalgae have great potential to be a feedstock for producing biofuel. One of the major impediments towards the industrial-scale manufacturing of biofuel from microalgae is the ineffective separation of microalgae from water. In this communication, we first carried out froth flotation tests to harvest freshwater microalgae (Chlorella sp. BR2) and marine microalgae (Tetraselmis sp. M8) from di...

Metabolic network reconstruction encompasses existing knowledge about an organism's metabolism and genome annotation, providing a platform for omics data analysis and phenotype prediction. The model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is employed to study diverse biological processes from photosynthesis to phototaxis. Recent heightened interest in this species results from an international movement ...