IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v36y2014icp256-269.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environment-enhancing algal biofuel production using wastewaters

Author

Listed:
  • Zhou, Wenguang
  • Chen, Paul
  • Min, Min
  • Ma, Xiaochen
  • Wang, Jinghan
  • Griffith, Richard
  • Hussain, Fida
  • Peng, Pu
  • Xie, Qinglong
  • Li, Yun
  • Shi, Jian
  • Meng, Jianzong
  • Ruan, Roger

Abstract

The potential of algae-based biofuels to replace petroleum fuels and mitigate greenhouse gas production through microalgal photosynthesis has long been recognized. However, currently there are no commercial algae-to-fuels technologies that can overcome techno-economic barriers and address serious sustainability concerns. Coupling microalgae cultivation with wastewater treatment is considered as one of the most promising routes to produce bio-energy and bio-based byproducts in an economically viable and environmentally friendly way. This paper critically reviews the current status of this specific niche research area covering utilization of different types of wastewaters as media for algae cultivation, microalgae selection, bioreactor type, cultivation mode, environmental factors and operational parameters as well as harvesting techniques and production of a broad spectrum of biofuels and byproducts through various conversion pathways. Future development of practical solutions to key problems and integration of advanced algae cultivation and wastewater treatment, and system analysis approach to the evaluation of economic feasibility and sustainability of wastewater-based algal biofuel production are also discussed in depth.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhou, Wenguang & Chen, Paul & Min, Min & Ma, Xiaochen & Wang, Jinghan & Griffith, Richard & Hussain, Fida & Peng, Pu & Xie, Qinglong & Li, Yun & Shi, Jian & Meng, Jianzong & Ruan, Roger, 2014. "Environment-enhancing algal biofuel production using wastewaters," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 256-269.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:36:y:2014:i:c:p:256-269
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2014.04.073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114003116
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2014.04.073?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lindstrom, M. J. & Gupta, S. C. & Onstad, C. A. & Holt, R. F. & Larson, W. E., 1981. "Crop Residue Removal and Tillage: Effects on Soil Erosion and Nutrient Loss in the Corn Belt," Agricultural Information Bulletins 309309, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    2. Mark Huntley & Donald Redalje, 2007. "CO 2 Mitigation and Renewable Oil from Photosynthetic Microbes: A New Appraisal," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 573-608, May.
    3. Zhou, Wenguang & Li, Yecong & Min, Min & Hu, Bing & Zhang, Hong & Ma, Xiaochen & Li, Liang & Cheng, Yanling & Chen, Paul & Ruan, Roger, 2012. "Growing wastewater-born microalga Auxenochlorella protothecoides UMN280 on concentrated municipal wastewater for simultaneous nutrient removal and energy feedstock production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 433-440.
    4. Hu, Bing & Zhou, Wenguang & Min, Min & Du, Zhenyi & Chen, Paul & Ma, Xiaochen & Liu, Yuhuan & Lei, Hanwu & Shi, Jian & Ruan, Roger, 2013. "Development of an effective acidogenically digested swine manure-based algal system for improved wastewater treatment and biofuel and feed production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 255-263.
    5. Li, Yuan-Guang & Xu, Ling & Huang, Ying-Ming & Wang, Feng & Guo, Chen & Liu, Chun-Zhao, 2011. "Microalgal biodiesel in China: Opportunities and challenges," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(10), pages 3432-3437.
    6. Davis, Ryan & Aden, Andy & Pienkos, Philip T., 2011. "Techno-economic analysis of autotrophic microalgae for fuel production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(10), pages 3524-3531.
    7. Das, Probir & Aziz, Siti Sarah & Obbard, Jeffrey Philip, 2011. "Two phase microalgae growth in the open system for enhanced lipid productivity," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 2524-2528.
    8. Kadam, K.L, 2002. "Environmental implications of power generation via coal-microalgae cofiring," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 27(10), pages 905-922.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Leong, Wai-Hong & Lim, Jun-Wei & Lam, Man-Kee & Uemura, Yoshimitsu & Ho, Yeek-Chia, 2018. "Third generation biofuels: A nutritional perspective in enhancing microbial lipid production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 950-961.
    2. Zhu, Liandong & Nugroho, Y.K. & Shakeel, S.R. & Li, Zhaohua & Martinkauppi, B. & Hiltunen, E., 2017. "Using microalgae to produce liquid transportation biodiesel: What is next?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 391-400.
    3. Zhou, Wenguang & Wang, Jinghan & Chen, Paul & Ji, Chengcheng & Kang, Qiuyun & Lu, Bei & Li, Kun & Liu, Jin & Ruan, Roger, 2017. "Bio-mitigation of carbon dioxide using microalgal systems: Advances and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1163-1175.
    4. Guyue Zou & Yuhuan Liu & Qi Zhang & Ting Zhou & Shuyu Xiang & Zhiqiang Gu & Qiaoyun Huang & Hongbin Yan & Hongli Zheng & Xiaodan Wu & Yunpu Wang & Roger Ruan & Mingzhi Liu, 2020. "Cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris in a Light-Receiving-Plate (LRP)-Enhanced Raceway Pond for Ammonium and Phosphorus Removal from Pretreated Pig Urine," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-15, April.
    5. Xingguan Ma & Wenhao Jian, 2023. "Growth Conditions and Growth Kinetics of Chlorella Vulgaris Cultured in Domestic Sewage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-13, January.
    6. Cheah, Wai Yan & Ling, Tau Chuan & Show, Pau Loke & Juan, Joon Ching & Chang, Jo-Shu & Lee, Duu-Jong, 2016. "Cultivation in wastewaters for energy: A microalgae platform," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 609-625.
    7. Tu, Qingshi & Eckelman, Matthew & Zimmerman, Julie Beth, 2018. "Harmonized algal biofuel life cycle assessment studies enable direct process train comparison," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 224(C), pages 494-509.
    8. Zhang, Tian-Yuan & Hu, Hong-Ying & Wu, Yin-Hu & Zhuang, Lin-Lan & Xu, Xue-Qiao & Wang, Xiao-Xiong & Dao, Guo-Hua, 2016. "Promising solutions to solve the bottlenecks in the large-scale cultivation of microalgae for biomass/bioenergy production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1602-1614.
    9. Shah, Syed Hasnain & Raja, Iftikhar Ahmed & Rizwan, Muhammad & Rashid, Naim & Mahmood, Qaisar & Shah, Fayyaz Ali & Pervez, Arshid, 2018. "Potential of microalgal biodiesel production and its sustainability perspectives in Pakistan," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P1), pages 76-92.
    10. Bibi, Riaz & Ahmad, Zulfiqar & Imran, Muhammad & Hussain, Sabir & Ditta, Allah & Mahmood, Shahid & Khalid, Azeem, 2017. "Algal bioethanol production technology: A trend towards sustainable development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 976-985.
    11. Sandra Lage & Zivan Gojkovic & Christiane Funk & Francesco G. Gentili, 2018. "Algal Biomass from Wastewater and Flue Gases as a Source of Bioenergy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-30, March.
    12. Lam, Man Kee & Yusoff, Mohammad Iqram & Uemura, Yoshimitsu & Lim, Jun Wei & Khoo, Choon Gek & Lee, Keat Teong & Ong, Hwai Chyuan, 2017. "Cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris using nutrients source from domestic wastewater for biodiesel production: Growth condition and kinetic studies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 197-207.
    13. Vasistha, S. & Khanra, A. & Clifford, M. & Rai, M.P., 2021. "Current advances in microalgae harvesting and lipid extraction processes for improved biodiesel production: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Han, Song-Fang & Jin, Wenbiao & Yang, Qian & El-Fatah Abomohra, Abd & Zhou, Xu & Tu, Renjie & Chen, Chuan & Xie, Guo-Jun & Wang, Qilin, 2019. "Application of pulse electric field pretreatment for enhancing lipid extraction from Chlorella pyrenoidosa grown in wastewater," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 233-239.
    15. Attila Bai & József Popp & Károly Pető & Irén Szőke & Mónika Harangi-Rákos & Zoltán Gabnai, 2017. "The Significance of Forests and Algae in CO 2 Balance: A Hungarian Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-24, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Al-Jabri, Hareb & Das, Probir & Khan, Shoyeb & AbdulQuadir, Mohammad & Thaher, Mehmoud Ibrahim & Hoekman, Kent & Hawari, Alaa H., 2022. "A comparison of bio-crude oil production from five marine microalgae – Using life cycle analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    2. Su, Yujie & Song, Kaihui & Zhang, Peidong & Su, Yuqing & Cheng, Jing & Chen, Xiao, 2017. "Progress of microalgae biofuel’s commercialization," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 402-411.
    3. Banerjee, Sanjukta & Banerjee, Srijoni & Ghosh, Ananta K. & Das, Debabrata, 2020. "Maneuvering the genetic and metabolic pathway for improving biofuel production in algae: Present status and future prospective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    4. Rawat, I. & Ranjith Kumar, R. & Mutanda, T. & Bux, F., 2013. "Biodiesel from microalgae: A critical evaluation from laboratory to large scale production," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 444-467.
    5. Pate, Ron & Klise, Geoff & Wu, Ben, 2011. "Resource demand implications for US algae biofuels production scale-up," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(10), pages 3377-3388.
    6. Doshi, Amar & Pascoe, Sean & Coglan, Louisa & Rainey, Thomas J., 2016. "Economic and policy issues in the production of algae-based biofuels: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 329-337.
    7. Pragya, Namita & Pandey, Krishan K., 2016. "Life cycle assessment of green diesel production from microalgae," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 623-632.
    8. Tasić, Marija B. & Pinto, Luisa Fernanda Rios & Klein, Bruno Colling & Veljković, Vlada B. & Filho, Rubens Maciel, 2016. "Botryococcus braunii for biodiesel production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 260-270.
    9. Zhou, Wenguang & Wang, Jinghan & Chen, Paul & Ji, Chengcheng & Kang, Qiuyun & Lu, Bei & Li, Kun & Liu, Jin & Ruan, Roger, 2017. "Bio-mitigation of carbon dioxide using microalgal systems: Advances and perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1163-1175.
    10. Xunmin Ou & Xiaoyu Yan & Xu Zhang & Xiliang Zhang, 2013. "Life-Cycle Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Analysis for Bio-Liquid Jet Fuel from Open Pond-Based Micro-Algae under China Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(9), pages 1-27, September.
    11. Colin M. Beal & Robert E. Hebner & Michael E. Webber & Rodney S. Ruoff & A. Frank Seibert & Carey W. King, 2012. "Comprehensive Evaluation of Algal Biofuel Production: Experimental and Target Results," Energies, MDPI, vol. 5(6), pages 1-39, June.
    12. Lucas Reijnders, 2013. "Lipid‐based liquid biofuels from autotrophic microalgae: energetic and environmental performance," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 73-85, January.
    13. Sun, Chi-He & Fu, Qian & Liao, Qiang & Xia, Ao & Huang, Yun & Zhu, Xun & Reungsang, Alissara & Chang, Hai-Xing, 2019. "Life-cycle assessment of biofuel production from microalgae via various bioenergy conversion systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 1033-1045.
    14. Kosinkova, Jana & Doshi, Amar & Maire, Juliette & Ristovski, Zoran & Brown, Richard & Rainey, Thomas J., 2015. "Measuring the regional availability of biomass for biofuels and the potential for microalgae," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1271-1285.
    15. Cheah, Wai Yan & Ling, Tau Chuan & Show, Pau Loke & Juan, Joon Ching & Chang, Jo-Shu & Lee, Duu-Jong, 2016. "Cultivation in wastewaters for energy: A microalgae platform," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 609-625.
    16. Brennan, Liam & Owende, Philip, 2010. "Biofuels from microalgae--A review of technologies for production, processing, and extractions of biofuels and co-products," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 557-577, February.
    17. Razon, Luis F. & Tan, Raymond R., 2011. "Net energy analysis of the production of biodiesel and biogas from the microalgae: Haematococcus pluvialis and Nannochloropsis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(10), pages 3507-3514.
    18. Soman, Abhinav & Shastri, Yogendra, 2015. "Optimization of novel photobioreactor design using computational fluid dynamics," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 246-255.
    19. Sibi G, 2018. "Bioenergy Production from Wastes by Microalgae as Sustainable Approach for Waste Management and to Reduce Resources Depletion," International Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 13(3), pages 77-80, July.
    20. Ribeiro, Lauro André & Silva, Patrícia Pereira da, 2013. "Surveying techno-economic indicators of microalgae biofuel technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 89-96.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:36:y:2014:i:c:p:256-269. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.