Techno-Economic Analysis of Biodiesel Production from Microalgae: A Review

Abstract

The development of the microalgae-based biodiesel technology has become a hot research topic in the bioenergy field in recent years. Presently, the technical possibility of the conversion of microalgae to biodiesel has been confirmed at the laboratory scale. The fundamental issues impeding the industrialization of microalgae-based biodiesel include the high cost of production and the lack of research on the scaling-up technology. In this paper, the technical challenges and economic aspects of biodiesel production from microalgae were analyzed. It was found that the production cost of microalgae-based biodiesel mainly come from three processes: microalgae cultivation, harvest, and lipid extraction, among which microalgae cultivation represented the highest cost. Finally, the prospect of the industrialization of the microalgae-based biodiesel was proposed.  Citation:  Junying Chen, Qingliang Li, Chun Chang, Jing Bai, Liping Liu, Shuqi Fang ,Hongliang Li, Techno-Economic Analysis of Biodiesel Production from Microalgae: A Review, Trends in Renewable Energy, 2017, 3(2): 141-52. DOI: 10.17737/tre.2017.3.2.0035