1SF-9 : Biorefinery of microalgae biomass for liquid biofuel production

Microalgae are a potential feedstock for biofuel production due to their advantages such as high level accumulation of lipid and carbohydrate. In this study, a sequential and integrated production of liquid biofuels such as biodiesel, bioethanol and bio-oil from microalgae was performed. Biodiesel were synthesized by a two-step procedure of dimethyl carbonate-based lipid extraction from microalgae and biotransformation of these lipids to biodiesel by lipase. In the second step, lipid-extracted residual biomass containing 60 % carbohydrate per dry cell weight was used as the feedstock for producing bioethanol via fermentation with yeast. In the last step, the residual biomass converted to bio-oil through pyrolysis. Microalgae-based pyrolysis liquids were separated into two phases with the top organic phase called bio-oil. Major microalgae components were successfully utilized for production of various biofuels.