Two-step process for production of biodiesel blends from oleaginous yeast and microalgae

Abstract

Biodiesel produced from oleaginous microorganisms shows promise in displacing use of petroleum diesel fuel, however, low biodiesel yields and rigorous processing have thwarted largescale commercialization. Here, we report a simple and efficient two-step process for generating biodiesel blends from microbial biomass, which eliminates the need for solvent extractions, distillations, or additional purifications. In the present work, diesel fuel was utilized to extract biodiesel produced from direct transesterification of the yeast, Cryptococcus curvatus, and microalgae, Scenedesmus dimorphus, thus generating a blend of microbial biodiesel and diesel fuel. Up to 93% and 83% of the produced biodiesel is extracted from both yeast and microalgae, respectively, whereas the majority of pigments are excluded. A B20 blend produced from yeast meets key ASTM fuel requirements including flash point, viscosity, sulfur, oxidation stability, and acid number. Integration of experimental data into system models reveals a 25% reduction in the net energy ratio (NER) with the process presented here compared to traditional solvent extraction.

A Seagrass‐Based Biorefinery for Generation of Single‐Cell Oils for Biofuel and Oleochemical Production

“…Previous reports used pure sucrose, synthetic media, pre‐treated secondary wastewater sludge, and pre‐treated microalgae hydrolysate fed with pure glucose as cultivation media for oily yeasts. Conversely, T. oleaginosus was successfully cultivated in all hydrolysates of aged‐seagrass as the sole carbon source, without expensive additives such as yeast extract and biotin.…”

“…McCurdy et al., showed that lipids from T. oleaginosus can be converted into biodiesel with a recovery of 98.9 %. Furthermore, flash point, viscosity, sulfur content, and acid number of the corresponding B20 meet the ASTM requirement and it is comparable to Soybean B20 …”

“…Palmitic acid, stearic acid, and oleic acid are the major fatty acids of the accumulated triglycerides. Moreover, the biodiesel B20 derivative from T. oleaginosus lipid has been shown to meet the ASTM certification . Therefore, the SCO fatty acid composition offers a potent alternative to vegetable oils, by alleviating competition with food resources.…”

Production of biodiesel from unused algal biomass in Punjab, India

“…Moreover, all of them were within the limit of ASTM/ BIS standards (Table 7) (McCurdy et al 2014;Diesel Net Technology Guide 2009). The kinematic viscosity of the biodiesel was just a little higher than the petroleum diesel (3 mm 2 /s).…”

Operational performance of tractor running with diesel and biodiesel from buriti oil (Mauritia flexuosa)

“…Studies on renewable liquid fuel production demonstrate that large-scale production can replace petroleum derived fuels (Brown and Brown, 2013;Mccurdy et al, 2014). Biodiesel is one of the most promising renewable fuel, and has been produced from various raw feedstocks such as oil from crops and residual oils (Vasudevan and Briggs, 2008).…”