MICROALGAL PRODUCTION USING PHOTO-BIOREACTORS To PRODUCE BIOFUELS

摘要

The present world needs renewable biofuels to displacepetroleum-derived transport fuels, which contribute toglobal warming and are of limited availability. Biodieselproduced from microalgae seems to be the only renewablebiofuel that has the capacity to completely displacepetroleum-derived transport fuels without adverselyaffecting supply of food and other crop products.According to scientists currently working on algae andmicroalgae for biofuel production, only microalgae providea practical solution to fuel demand. However, under thecurrent technology, these photo-bioreactors are expensiveto build and operate. Scientists are not in a position topredict a photo-bioreactor's performance in growing algaeunder different sunlight levels without expensive field trials.Without conducting such high-cost field trials, the annualalgal oil production from a given size of a photo-bioreactoris impossible to predict. Therefore, it is difficult to estimateproduction costs for various potential commercial scenariosfor biofuel production. Furthermore, they are yet to clearlyidentify if algae can rapidly produce high levels of lipidsunder field conditions consistently.