Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 2090-4541
+44 1300 500008
Naim Rashid, Madeha Naim and Jong-In Han
Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation, USA
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Fundam Renewable Energy Appl
The focus of this study was to demonstrate the potential of microalgae for various bio-refinery applications. Challenges in major steps of microalgae systems including cultivation and harvesting were addressed. At first, growth rate of microalgae was enhanced by manipulating the effect of light and nutrients in two-stage cultivation system. Fast growing microalgae cells were subjected to various culture conditions for biodiesel and bio-hydrogen production. It is found that high growth rate and biodiesel yield were subject to the provision of nutrients and light enriched conditions throughout cultivation period. The maximum hydrogen yield of 1300 mg/L was obtained by adopting several techniques such as sulfur-deprivation, immobilization and by altering photoperiod of fermentation. The potential of microalgae was also tested in a distinct microbial fuel cell (MFC) for bio-electricity generation, waste treatment and biodiesel production simultaneously. In MFC, microalgae could attain 1.5 g/L of biomass at cathode. This system also produced power density up to ~1900 mW/m2. To further improve energy recovery of microalgae cells, oil-extracted microalgae biomass was successfully used as anodic feedstock in MFC. Presently, the research focus is onto co-culture of microalgae-bacteria, having an ability to use urban wastewater as a nutrients source and bacterial community as a bio-flocculent. Preliminary investigations have validated this concept. However, further study is underway to explore microalgae-bacteria synergetic relationship to induced high lipid and high harvesting efficiency. naimkanwar@yahoo.com, naimkanwar@gmail.com