Macroalgae as a potential source of biomass for generation of biofuel: Artificial intelligence, challenges, and future insights towards a sustainable environment

Abstract

The increase in the world's population and the demand for energy has increased the need to use different sources of energy generation. On the other hand, the use of fossil fuels, which is currently considered the main source of energy around the world, has led to the production of a high amount of environmental pollution and the reduction of natural fuel resources. Therefore, the use of biofuels and renewable as a potential and clean source is a very attractive alternative. Currently, macroalgae are cultivated for various industrial and food purposes in different regions of the world. Due to the high number of compounds such as carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, macroalgae can be a suitable source to produce biofuels. There are various biotechnological methods to produce energy from macroalgae. These methods are divided into two general categories of biochemical processes such as fermentation and anaerobic digestion and thermochemical processes such as burning, pyrolysis and hydrothermal liquefaction. In these methods, depending on the type of method, valuable gaseous, liquid, and solid compounds are produced that have many applications. This review focuses on the methods and studies conducted on energy generation from different species of macroalgae and develop various applications of artificial intelligence to produce biofuel from this type of algae and also identify the challenges towards a sustainable environment and offers different solutions to overcome the existing challenges.