Employing indigenous microalgae for third generation biofuel production

Abstract

Microalgae have been identified as a potential source for biofuel production by the researches. Cell disruption and chlorophyll removal of microalgae biomass are the most critical factors, which determine the lipid extraction yield and the biodiesel quality. Thus, the chlorophyll removal and cell disruption before lipid extraction is a mandatory step for the microalgae biodiesel production. This research investigated the growth rate and different pretreatment methods on lipid yield for selected microalgae species. Desmodesmus sp., Scenedesmus sp. & Closteriopsis sp. are the selected indigenous microalgae species, which were isolated from the Beira Lake, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Desmodesmus sp has shown the highest growth rate compared to other two species. Moreover, most suitable cell disruption method, which gave the highest lipid yield for each species were different.