Hydrothermal liquefaction of micro algae cultivated in marine fresh and waste water sources to produce bio crude for biofuel applications

Abstract

Fossil fuel usage is rapidly increasing all over the world, as the demand for energy and transportation fuels is going up every year. About 87% of India s crude oil requirements are met through imports. Growing concerns regarding energy security and climate changes due to increasing CO2 emissions from fossil fuels like petroleum crude and coal, necessitates the need for production of alternative fuels from renewable sources to fulfil our future energy needs. Wind and solar energy in spite of leading the list of renewable energy sources are yet to make an impact in ransportation sector. First generation bio fuels like Ethanol and Bio-diesel which are made from food crops are considered not sustainable since they need vast areas of arable land, water and fertilizers which otherwise could be used for food crops. Hence, the attention got diverted to second generation biofuels like bioethanol produced from non-edible feedstocks such as lignocellulosic biomass residues and newlinebiodiesel produced from non-edible oil seed crops. Unfortunately, in India, the land area and availability of lignocellulosic feedstock is limited and may not be sufficient for meeting our future energy needs. The efforts to promote Jatropha as a potential crop for the production of biodiesel were not successful due to various technical and operational issues. Algae are thus a favoured source for production of renewable fuels as their photosynthetic efficiency and biomass productivity are much higher than the terrestrial plants. Algae can be cultivated in unproductive lands and poor quality waters which include seawater, brackish water, municipal /agricultural / industrial waste water. newline newline