Macroalgae-Derived Biofuel: A Review of Methods of Energy Extraction from Seaweed Biomass

John Milledge,Patricia Harvey,Philip Dyer,Benjamin Smith

doi:10.3390/en7117194

John Milledge, Patricia Harvey + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/en7117194

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Journal: Energies	Publication Date: Nov 7, 2014
Citations: 390	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Greenwich, Durham University

Abstract

The potential of algal biomass as a source of liquid and gaseous biofuels is a highly topical theme, but as yet there is no successful economically viable commercial system producing biofuel. However, the majority of the research has focused on producing fuels from microalgae rather than from macroalgae. This article briefly reviews the methods by which useful energy may be extracted from macroalgae biomass including: direct combustion, pyrolysis, gasification, trans-esterification to biodiesel, hydrothermal liquefaction, fermentation to bioethanol, fermentation to biobutanol and anaerobic digestion, and explores technical and engineering difficulties that remain to be resolved.

Highlights

Algae are a diverse range of aquatic “plants”, comprising both unicellular and multi-cellular forms, which generally possess chlorophyll, but are without true stems and roots
Some of the sugars produced from the breakdown of seaweed polysaccharides are not readily fermented; b Supercritical water gasification (SCWG) an alternative gasification technology can convert high moisture biomass; c No current commercial process for the wet trans-esterification of wet macroalgal biomass
Ulva lactuca solubilised by hot-water treatment followed by hydrolysis using commercial cellulases to produce sugars was used as feedstock for fermentation by Clostridium for the production of acetone, butanol and ethanol (ABE) with a yield of 0.35 g ABE g−1 sugar [116]. These results demonstrate the potential of the seaweed, Ulva lactuca, as a substrate for ABE

Summary

Introduction

Algae are a diverse range of aquatic “plants”, comprising both unicellular and multi-cellular forms, which generally possess chlorophyll, but are without true stems and roots. Are considered as among the most potentially significant future sources of sustainable biofuels [10], and have been described as potential sunlight-driven cell factories for the conversion of carbon dioxide to biofuels and chemical feedstocks [3]. Despite their obvious potential, there are no economically-viable commercial-scale quantities of fuel from either micro- or macroalgae [11,12,13]

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