Microalgae for Biofuels and Animal Feeds

By J. Benemann. 2013

304 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The potential of microalgae biomass production for low-cost commodities—biofuels and animal feeds—using sunlight and CO 2 is reviewed. Microalgae are currently cultivated in relatively small-scale systems, mainly for high value human nutritional products. For commodities, production costs must be decreased by an order of magnitude, and high productivity algal strains must be developed that can be stably cultivated in large open ponds and harvested by low-cost processes. For animal feeds, the algal biomass must be high in digestible protein and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids that can substitute for fish meal and fish oils. Biofuels will require a high content of vegetable oils (preferably triglycerides), hydrocarbons or fermentable carbohydrates. Many different cultivation systems, algal species, harvesting methods, and biomass processing technologies are being developed worldwide. However, only raceway-type open pond systems are suitable for the production of low-cost commodities.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/376e421a245b47e0d2687ba3d888e13a0a300316

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Biomedical Engineering

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Citations in the corpus

Photosynthetic bacteria: an eco-friendly and cheap tool for bioremediation (2015, methodology): “This biomass can be obtained by drying and cell breakage for easy digestion (Benemann 2013).”
Influence of culture medium recycling on the performance of Arthrospira platensis cultures (2015, background): “The bulk of the total global production can be ascribed to a single species, the cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis, commercially known as ‘Spirulina’ [6].”
Microalgae research worldwide (2018, background): “Nevertheless, most of the microalgae biomass produced worldwide is still produced in open raceways (Benemann 2013).”
The Enzymatic Conversion of Major Algal and Cyanobacterial Carbohydrates to Bioethanol (2016, background): “org November 2016 | Volume 4 | Article 36 microalgae have been discussed in detail elsewhere (Hannon et al., 2010; Benemann, 2013; Scaife et al., 2015).”
Optimization of Arthrospira platensis (Spirulina) Growth: From Laboratory Scale to Pilot Scale (2017, background): “The common name of its commercialized biomass is “Spirulina” (the name used in this paper) which production makes this microorganism to be the most cultivated worldwide [1].”
Microalgae in aquafeeds for a sustainable aquaculture industry (2018, background): “Several recent reviews (Hemaiswarya et al. 2011; Priyadarshani and Rath 2012; Benemann 2013; Roy and Pal 2014; Yaakob et al. 2014) have indicated high potential for microalgae as a bulk feedstuff for aquaculture feeds.”
Biochemical characterization of microalgal biomass from freshwater species isolated in Alberta, Canada for animal feed applications (2015, background): “The vast majority of this relatively small production (~15,000 t year) is ‘purpose-cultivated’ as high value (N$10,000 t) human nutritional supplements and pigments either in open cultivation ponds or open/closed hybrid systems [14].”