Investigating the role of reactor design to maximise the environmental benefit of algal oil for biodiesel
Year: 2011
Type: dissertation
Abstract: While initially thought to be promising, crop based biofuels are an inadequate alternative to fossilenergy due to the unrealistic space requirement, competition with food crops for land use and greenhouse gas release on clearing for crop land several times greater than biofuels provide throughdisplacing fossil fuels, a factor inadequately accounted for in past studies. In contrast, biodiesel frommicroalgae is of interest due to the lower spatial requirements, much higher oil productivity, no requirement for arable land and rapid growth and harvesting cycles. To ensure the oversights of cropbased biofuels are not repeated, there is a need to explore the sustainability of an algal biorefinery in the context of biodiesel production in this early phase of process development. An integratedbiorefinery approach for the production of multiple products has been seen to improve the overallefficiency of biomass utilization in biofuel systems, contributing to both economic success and environmental sustainability and is of interest for microalgal biodiesel production
Author: Christine Richardson
Language: English
Field: Energy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Research Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W2886048985