Current approaches in producing oil and biodiesel from microalgal biomass

Abstract

Alternative biofuel sources, such as biodiesel, produced from nontoxic, biodegradable, and renewable materials are currently attracting great interest given the growing global energy demand. Microalgae are an exceptional biofuel source due to their potential for generating significant quantities of biomass and oil and for combining their production with environmental technologies such as wastewater treatment. Technologies for producing biodiesel from microalgae have been widely studied, especially increasing the lipid content in the cell, strain selection, lipid extraction, and transesterification methods and innovations that use wet biomass for extraction, which reduces the environmental impact and production cost. These aspects are explored in this chapter to identify the different production methods and technologies under development for expanding biodiesel production from microalgae.