Prospecting for Oleaginous and Robust Chlorella spp. for Coal-Fired Flue-Gas-Mediated Biodiesel Production

Abstract

Prospecting for robust and high-productivity strains is a strategically important step in the microalgal biodiesel process. In this study, 30 local strains of Chlorella were evaluated in photobioreactors for biodiesel production using coal-fired flue-gas. Three strains (M082, M134, and KR-1) were sequentially selected based on cell growth, lipid content, and fatty acid composition under autotrophic and mixotrophic conditions. Under autotrophic conditions, M082 and M134 showed comparable lipid contents (ca. 230 mg FAME [fatty acid methyl esters derived from microalgal lipids]/g cell) and productivities (ca. 40 mg FAME/L·d) versus a reference strain (KR-1) outdoors with actual flue-gas (CO2, 13%). Interestingly, under mixotrophic conditions, M082 demonstrated, along with maximal lipid content (397 mg FAME/g cell), good tolerance to high temperature (40 °C). Furthermore, the fatty acid methyl esters met important international standards under all of the tested culture conditions. Thus, it was concluded that M082 can be a feedstock of choice for coal-fired, flue-gas-mediated biodiesel production.

Agro-Industrial Wastewaters for Algal Biomass Production, Bio-Based Products, and Biofuels in a Circular Bioeconomy

“…Beyond wastewater and solid residues in the agro-industry, discussions can expand to the issue of gaseous effluents and the development of bioprocesses that play an important role in the treatment, since they are considered one of the primary sources of emissions and contamination in the industrial process [81,165]. One of the emission sources originates from burning biomass or fossil fuels, where coal is widely used as an energy source [166][167][168][169][170]. Another source of emissions of gaseous effluents is biodigesters, which can be used to produce methane to generate electricity and heat and can emit high concentrations of CO 2 and H 2 S [171].…”

Flocculation Harvesting Techniques for Microalgae: A Review

“…Microalgae can utilize CO 2 as an inorganic carbon substrate using light energy and can be grown using diverse water resources, including freshwater, seawater, and even industrial/domestic wastewater. They can be also cultivated at a large-scale using different bioreactor systems such as open ponds and photobioreactors [6,7]. However, due to the low concentration (~5 g/L) in culture, small size (~5 µm) and negative surface charge (~−20 mV) of algal cells, external energy and/or chemicals are chemicals are generally required to accelerate their recovery from base water [8,9].…”

Biofuel and Bioenergy Technology

“…This Special Issue of Energies on the subject of "Biofuel and Bioenergy Technology" contains the successful invited submissions . A total of twenty-seven technical papers which cover diversified biofuel and bioenergy technology related researches have shown critical results and contributed significant findings in biomass processing [1,2], bio-oil and biodiesel [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11], syngas [12][13][14], biogas/methane [15][16][17][18][19], bioethanol and alcohol-based fuels [20][21][22], solid fuel [23][24][25] and also microbial fuel cell [13,26,27] developments.…”

“…In Anwar et al's, [5] work, it was found that by blending papaya oil biodiesel with varying contents (5-20%) with diesel could improve the engine testing properties. Microalgal biodiesel was generated using photobioreactor with coal-fired flue gas from three strains (M082, M134 and KR-1) [10]. Among the strains, M082 generated high lipid value of 397 mg/g which was regarded to be a suitable feedstock for biodiesel production.…”