Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Sustainable Production of
Biofuels from Microalgae
Using a Bioreinary Approach
Bhaskar Singh, Abhishek Guldhe, Poonam Singh,
Anupama Singh, Ismail Rawat and Faizal Bux
Abstract
Biorefinery has emerged as a new concept to derive more than one utility
product from biomass. The products from biorefinery include one or more
biofuels (biodiesel, bioethanol, biomethane, and biohydrogen) along with
other energy sources (syngas and bio-oil), pharmaceutical products, and
commercially important chemicals. Biorefineries, thus could simultane-
ously produce biofuels, bio-based chemicals, heat, and power. The bio-
mass production and its utilization as biofuel has a higher water footprint
(WF) than fossil derived fuel. The biorefinery approach has the potential
to bring down the WF. Similarly, biorefinery approach has the potential to
bring down the carbon footprint. The value added product derived from
biorefinery basket includes pigments, nutraceuticals, and bioactive com-
pounds. The use of industrial refusals for biomass production includes
wastewater as nutrient medium and utilization of flue gases (CO
2
) as the
carbon source for culture of microalgae. These processes have the poten-
tial to reduce fresh WF and carbon footprint.
Keywords
Biorefinery
ﾷ
Biofuel
ﾷ
Biomass
ﾷ
Carbon footprint
ﾷ
Water footprint
8.1
Introduction
Bhaskar Singh, Abhishek Guldhe, and Poonam Singh
contributed equally to this chapter
A biofuel is one that contains energy from geo-
logically recent fixed carbon. The source of bio-
fuel is biogenic viz., derived from plant or micro-
algae. As the carbon content in biofuel is recent,
it belongs to the category of renewable resource.
The first generation biofuels are those that are
produced from the raw materials in completion
with food and feed. These included cereals, sugar
cane, and oil seeds mostly from edible oil. Later,
the usage of fuel crops instead of agricultural
crops was debated that led to exploration of the
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