Cyanobacterial Farming for Environment Friendly Sustainable Agriculture Practices: Innovations and Perspectives

Abstract

Sustainable supply of food and energy without posing any threat to environment is the current demand of our society in view of continuous increase in global human population and depletion of natural resources of energy. Cyanobacteria have recently emerged as potential candidates who can fulfill abovementioned needs due to their ability to efficiently harvest solar energy and convert it into biomass by simple utilization of CO 2 , water and nutrients. During conversion of radiant energy into chemical energy, these biological systems produce oxygen as a by-product. Cyanobacterial biomass can be used for the production of food, energy, biofertilizers, secondary metabolites of nutritional, cosmetics, and medicinal importance. Therefore, cyanobacterial farming is proposed as environment friendly sustainable agricultural practice which can produce biomass of very high value. Additionally, cyanobacterial farming helps in decreasing the level of greenhouse gas, i.e., CO 2 , and it can be also used for removing various contaminants from wastewater and soil. However, utilization of cyanobacteria for resolving the abovementioned problems is subjected to economic viability. In this review, we provide details on different aspects of cyanobacterial system that can help in developing sustainable agricultural practices. We also describe different large-scale cultivation systems for cyanobacterial farming and discuss their merits and demerits in terms of economic profitability.

Environmental impacts and limitations of third‐generation biobutanol: Life cycle assessment of n‐butanol produced by genetically engineered cyanobacteria

“…As cyanobacteria do not excrete other products in any considerable amount, the cultivation process does not include any coproducts. In the case of the conversion of waste biomass to soil biofertilizer (Pathak et al., ), the avoided‐burdens (substitution allocation) method was applied.…”

“…A second embodiment is genetically engineered cyanobacteria that synthesize and secrete fuel molecules such as ethanol and butanol (Lan & Liao, ; Robertson et al., ). Although both cases avoid food‐ and land‐associated problems of first‐ and second‐generation biofuels (Pathak, Maurya, Singh, Häder, & Sinha, ), the cyanobacteria‐based process has been considered an improvement as, in addition to the genetic engineering tractability of cyanobacteria, a secreted product obviates the need for dewatering biomass or upgrading lipids to biofuel, which has been estimated to account for 32% of the energy input in these systems (Batan, Quinn, Willson, & Bradley, ). However, separation of secreted, short‐chain alcohols from liquid culture could also be energy‐intensive.…”

Photosynthetic protein classification using genome neighborhood-based machine learning feature

“…Photosynthesis is a multistep process comprising solar energy harvest, excitation energy transfer, energy conversion, electron transport, in particular, the transport of electrons flow from water to NADP+ and other electrochemical energy via photosystems and a series of enzymatic reactions required to synthesize components for cellular metabolism and environmental adaptation. Recently, photosynthetic prokaryotes, in comparison with plants, have attracted considerable attention for a wide range of renewable energy, agricultural and environmental applications aiming for sustainable development (Pathak, et al, 2018), probably due to their excellent productivity. However, it has been reported that the photosynthetic conversion efficiency falls around 6% of the total incident light.…”

Application of N2-Fixing Cyanobacteria Nostoc sp. SO-A31 to Hydroponically Grown Water Spinach (Ipomoea aquatic L.)

“…The symbiotic, as well as free-living cyanobacteria, have been utilized in agricultural practices, especially in rice field. The water fern Azolla with its cyanobacterium symbiont Anabaena azollae released ammonium when inoculated in paddy field (Pathak et al, 2018). Free-living Anabaena, Nostoc, and Gloeotrichia were contributed to the productivity of rice in Chile (Pereira et al, 2009).…”