Pretreatment of microalgae to improve biogas production: A review

Comparative testing of energy yields from micro-algal biomass cultures processed via anaerobic digestion

“…To date most micro-algae that have been tested for digestion have low carbon/nitrogen ratios that may contribute to high digester ammonia concentrations and toxicity [26]. Many micro-algal species have also shown low biodegradability, possibly due to the nature of the cell walls [27], although pre-treatments can improve methane yield [28]. When considering the potential for micro-algal digestion, it is therefore important that the origin and type of the micro-algal material is taken into consideration.…”

Effect of microalgae supplementation on the silage quality and anaerobic digestion performance of Manyflower silvergrass

“…It has become one of the feedstock for anaerobic digestion in recent years and its reported specific methane yield was within the range of 50-1197 mL/g VS (Gonzalez-Fernandez et al, 2012;Ometto et al, 2014). But due to its high nitrogen content, it may lead to ammonia toxicity (Passos et al, 2014), so it is a suitable feedstock for co-digestion with C-rich material. Positive effect was observed in the co-digestion system which used microalgae as one of the feedstocks (Olsson et al, 2014;Schwede et al, 2013).…”

A novel one-stage cultivation/fermentation strategy for improved biogas production with microalgal biomass

“…Once algal biomass is produced, it can be 77 converted into methane as a storable energy carrier through anaerobic digestion. The use of 78 algal biomass for biogas generation has been studied since 1957 (Golueke et al, 1957), 79 however the efficiency of the conversion has remained rather low (Passos et al, 2014). 80…”

“…First, the cost of biomass production is still comparably high. Growth of 82 microalgae can be achieved in closed photobioreactors or open pond facilities and much 83 research is ongoing to reduce the currently relatively high biomass production costs (Chisti, assumed to be based on the protecting outer cell wall of the microalgae, which usually 89 consists of several biopolymer compounds (Passos et al, 2014). For many microalgae, the 90 complex structure and composition is poorly understood (Popper and Tuohy, 2010).…”

“…The cell walls of C. vulgaris and other Chlorella sp. were shown to contain uronic 98 acids, and a variety of sugar constituents as well as glucosamine as common dominant cell 99 wall breakdown products (Gerken et intensive (Passos et al, 2014). 106…”