Bioenergy Production from Algae

Due to increasing awareness on global warming, development of sufficient recourses of clean energy are important. Bioenergy from waste has been recognized as another alternative source of energy that has a great demand in transportation and industrialization sector (Kamyab et. al., 2014). Biodiesel is a diesel substitute that has been recognized as non-toxic, biodegradable and renewable. The raw materials used for biodiesel production can be edible and non-edible oils, e.g. canola oil, soybean oil, palm oil, sunflower oil, cotton-seed oil, waste vegetable oil and jatropha oil. The first generation biodiesel from food crops cannot satisfy the existing demand for transport fuels.

Thus there is an increased interest in developing second generation biodiesel produced from non-food feedstock, such as jatropha or waste cooking oils (Moser, 2009) but it may still not enough to cope with the demand for transportation fuels. For this reason, third generation biodiesel derived from microalgae, is becoming an alternative source due to their high photosynthetic efficiency, growth rates and biomass productivity. Microalgae appears to be a potential renewable biodiesel that can help to meet the global demand for transport fuels as it can be converted to biodiesel, bioethanol, bio-oil, biohydrogen and biomethane via thermochemical and biochemical methods (Vairappan et al., 2008 and Gouveia and Olivera, 2009).