A Review of Energy Consumption in the Acquisition of Bio-Feedstock for Microalgae Biofuel Production

Minghao Chen, Yixuan Chen and Qingtao Zhang
Additional contact information
Minghao Chen: School of Civil Engineering, Zhuhai Campus, Sun Yat-sen University, Tangjiawan, Zhuhai 519082, China
Yixuan Chen: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Marine Civil Engineering, Zhuhai Campus, Sun Yat-sen University, Tangjiawan, Zhuhai 519082, China
Qingtao Zhang: School of Civil Engineering, Zhuhai Campus, Sun Yat-sen University, Tangjiawan, Zhuhai 519082, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-22

Abstract: Microalgae biofuel is expected to be an ideal alternative to fossil fuels to mitigate the effects of climate change and the energy crisis. However, the production process of microalgae biofuel is sometimes considered to be energy intensive and uneconomical, which limits its large-scale production. Several cultivation systems are used to acquire feedstock for microalgal biofuels production. The energy consumption of different cultivation systems is different, and the concentration of culture medium (microalgae cells contained in the unit volume of medium) and other properties of microalgae vary with the culture methods, which affects the energy consumption of subsequent processes. This review compared the energy consumption of different cultivation systems, including the open pond system, four types of closed photobioreactor (PBR) systems, and the hybrid cultivation system, and the energy consumption of the subsequent harvesting process. The biomass concentration and areal biomass production of every cultivation system were also analyzed. The results show that the flat-panel PBRs and the column PBRs are both preferred for large-scale biofuel production for high biomass productivity.

Keywords: microalgae; biofuel; energy consumption ratio (ECR); cultivation; photobioreactors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8873/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8873/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:8873-:d:610720

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().