Biofuels from microalgae

Depleting petroleum reserves and increasing rate of consumption have necessitated the search for alternative environmentally friendly CO ₂-neutral fuels. Many crops and nonfood plants were used for the production of biofuel, but microalgal biomass has shown added advantages over crop-based biodiesel. This article investigates and comprehends each production process for biodiesel production from microalgae in detail and also identifies the existing challenges. The major challenge for biofuel production is translating laboratory-scale findings to full-scale application. Large-scale microalgae cultivation for the production of biofuels has been a challenge in the past two decades. Many of the techniques developed are species dependent and also consume large amount of energy. The article also provides the advantages and disadvantages of each of the techniques developed for a particular stage of the production process. There are still a number of challenges in the production process of biofuel from microalgae and hence, requires further investigation to develop an optimized process.