Abstract
Due to significant lipid and carbohydrate production as well as other useful properties such as high production of useful biomolecular substrates (e.g., lipids) and the ability to grow using non-potable water sources, algae are being explored as a potential high-yield feedstock for biofuels production. In both natural and engineered systems, algae can be exposed to a variety of environmental conditions that affect growth rate and cellular composition. With respect to the latter, the amount of carbon fixed in lipids and carbohydrates (e.g., starch) is highly influenced by environmental factors and nutrient availability. Understanding synergistic interactions between multiple environmental variables and nutritional factors is required to develop sustainable high productivity bioalgae systems, which are essential for commercial biofuel production. This article reviews the effects of environmental factors (i.e., temperature, light and pH) and nutrient availability (e.g., carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and trace metals) as well as cross-interactions on the biochemical composition of algae with a special focus on carbon fixation and partitioning of carbon from a biofuels perspective.
Highlights
Increasing demand for energy and global warming are two major challenges facing modern society.Dependence on fossil fuels for meeting increasing energy demands is unsustainable due to increasing levels of consumption and a dearth in discovery of new sources for these non-renewables
This review directly addresses this issue by focusing on the impacts of environmental and nutritional factors on algae biochemistry related to biofuels production processes
The exploitation of microalgae as a protein source has led to increased interest in the use of microalgae (e.g., Spirulina, Chlorella and Scenedesmus) in health food production [48]
Summary
Increasing demand for energy and global warming are two major challenges facing modern society. Highly informative review, does consider microalgae and multiple environmental factors including temperature, light, pH, and salinity [33,34,35], it is almost exclusively focused on impacts of environmental factors on lipid production Understanding how these factors influence algal growth and broader metabolic functions ( lipid induction) is critical for successful scale-up of algae cultures in commercial systems for algal biofuels and bioproducts production. Algal production processes can be categorized into three general classes of growth regimes based on the energy source and mode of utilization; these include: photoautotrophic, heterotrophic and mixotrophic These growth processes can occur in open raceway ponds or closed bioreactor systems [36].
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