Abstract
The exploitation of petrochemical hydrocarbons is compromising ecosystem and human health and biotechnological research is increasingly focusing on sustainable materials from plants and, to a lesser extent, microalgae. Fatty acid derivatives include, among others, oxylipins, hydroxy fatty acids, diols, alkenones, and wax esters. They can occur as storage lipids or cell wall components and possess, in some cases, striking cosmeceutical, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical properties. In addition, long chain (>20) fatty acid derivatives mostly contain highly reduced methylenic carbons and exhibit a combustion enthalpy higher than that of C14–20 fatty acids, being potentially suitable as biofuel candidates. Finally, being the building blocks of cell wall components, some fatty acid derivatives might also be used as starters for the industrial synthesis of different polymers. Within this context, microalgae can be a promising source of fatty acid derivatives and, in contrast with terrestrial plants, do not require arable land neither clean water for their growth. Microalgal mass culturing for the extraction and the exploitation of fatty acid derivatives, along with products that are relevant in nutraceutics (e.g., polyunsaturated fatty acids), might contribute in increasing the viability of microalgal biotechnologies. This review explores fatty acids derivatives from microalgae with applications in the field of renewable energies, biomaterials and pharmaceuticals. Nannochloropsis spp. (Eustigmatophyceae, Heterokontophyta) are particularly interesting for biotechnological applications since they grow at faster rates than many other species and possess hydroxy fatty acids and aliphatic cell wall polymers.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Jinjin Diao, Washington University in St
In this review we focus on the applications of fatty acid derivatives for a number of applications including biofuels and fuel additives
Fatty acid derivatives such as alkenones, Long Chain Hydroxy Fatty Acids (LCHFAs), Long Chain Alkenols (LCAs), and Long Chain Diols (LCDs) are longer than C14−20 fatty acids and contain larger proportions of methylene groups over the total number of carbons, resulting in a higher combustion enthalpy (Balzano et al, 2019)
Summary
Due to the dramatic environmental issues caused by the consumption of fossil fuels as well as other materials of petrochemical origin, the use of biological resources for the production of sustainable compounds as well as biofuels is receiving greater attention from the chemical industry. The increasing demand of sustainable materials led the scientific community to address their studies in the research of new molecules. Biotechnological research investigated terrestrial plants for several decades highlighting a number of potential applications for the pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical, and nutraceutical industries. Extracts from plants such as Simmondsia chinensis (Pazyar et al, 2013), Argania spinosa (Avsar et al, 2016), and Aloe vera (Hekmatpou et al, 2019) are commonly used for skin protection and personal care products. A recent and exhaustive review on cosmeceutical and pharmaceutical products from plants is provided by Dorni et al (2017)
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