A review on the sustainable procurement of microalgal biomass from wastewaters for the production of biofuels

Imania Ghaffar; Balakrishnan Deepanraj; Lingala Syam Sundar; Dai-Viet N Vo; Algam Saikumar; Ali Hussain

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137094

A review on the sustainable procurement of microalgal biomass from wastewaters for the production of biofuels

Chemosphere. 2023 Jan;311(Pt 2):137094. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137094. Epub 2022 Nov 2.

Authors

Imania Ghaffar¹, Balakrishnan Deepanraj², Lingala Syam Sundar³, Dai-Viet N Vo⁴, Algam Saikumar⁵, Ali Hussain⁶

Affiliations

¹ Applied and Environmental Microbiology Laboratory, Department of Wildlife and Ecology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Electronic address: dbalakrishnan@pmu.edu.sa.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Institute of Applied Technology and Sustainable Development, Nguyen Tat Thanh University, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.
⁵ Department of Aeronautical Engineering, MLR Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, Telangana, India.
⁶ Applied and Environmental Microbiology Laboratory, Institute of Zoology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. Electronic address: ali.zool@pu.edu.pk.

PMID: 36334745
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.137094

Abstract

The feasibility of microalgal biomass as one of the most promising and renewable sources for the production of biofuels is being studied extensively. Microalgal biomass can be cultivated under photoautotrophic, heterotrophic, photoheterotrophic, and mixotrophic cultivation conditions. Photoautotrophic cultivation is the most common way of microalgal biomass production. Under mixotrophic cultivation, microalgae can utilize both organic carbon and CO₂ simultaneously. Mixotrophic cultivation depicts higher biomass productivity as compared to photoautotrophic cultivation. It is evident from the literature that mixotrophic cultivation yields higher quantities of polyunsaturated fatty acids as compared to that photoautotrophic cultivation. In this context, for economical biomass production, the organic carbon of industrial wastewaters can be valorized for the mixotrophic cultivation of microalgae. Following the way, contaminants' load of wastewaters can be reduced while concomitantly producing highly productive microalgal biomass. This review focuses on different aspects covering the sustainable cultivation of different microalgal species in different types of wastewaters.

Keywords: Bioremediation; CO(2) sequestration; Cultivation techniques; Harvesting techniques; Microalgae-based biofuels; Wastewaters contaminants.