Abstract
Algae are unicellular as well as multicellular organisms and have been called as micro and macroalgae, respectively. Algae offer multiple potential benefits to address the today’s need of the renewable feedstocks and energy source. Based on the source of feedstock, biofuels have been classified into first generation, second generation, and latest third/fourth generation biofuels. The latest technologies and scientific studies on algae have discovered the third and fourth generations of biofuels. Currently, researchers’ focus is on biofuels, and they have shown that marine macroalgae have substantial stamina to replace the first- and second-generation biofuels as they are eco-friendly and utilize carbon neutral energy. Algal biomass is a sustainable resource of energy and therefore could offer an economic, environment-friendly, and industrially growing area in biofuel research. Algal biofuel is produced from the lipid stored in the algal cells. Algae have very high carbon dioxide fixation rate, low land requirement, and require significantly less area for their cultivation and mass production. In addition, they certainly have high photosynthetic efficiency per area. The challenges in the algal biofuel production lies in the economic large-scale production of the microalgae lipid, which can be modulated by enhancing the lipid content without trailing the growth rate of the strains.
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Shukla, S., Shukla, R., Singh, N., Hemansi, Saini, J.K. (2022). Next Generation Biofuels from Macroalgae: Prospects and Challenges. In: Saini, J.K., Sani, R.K. (eds) Microbial Biotechnology for Renewable and Sustainable Energy. Clean Energy Production Technologies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3852-7_3
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