ABSTRACT

Productivities of up to 25g.m-2.d-1 afdw of microalgal biomass for biofuel feedstocks have been reported widely in recent times. However, there is a distinct lack of information relating to the minimum engineering required to establish a technically and economically feasible fully integrated microalgae to biofuel process plant. The scientific literature presents many novel alternatives for processing microalgae, but most are too costly, both energetically and economically, to be incorporated into the burgeoning microalgae to biofuel industry. An analysis of a fully integrated plant comprising open-pond culturing, liquid-constrained harvesting, cell disruption and solvent extraction will be presented. In addition, an overview of wastewater nutrient reclamation, fermentation and digestion of lipid extracted will be incorporated to highlight some areas where additional energy savings can be achieved. The analyses incorporate the evaluation of the minimum energetics required for specific processing steps that cannot be reduced due to fundamental physical quantities of microalgal biomass..