A Large-Scaled Production of Biodiesel from Microalgae.

Recently, maintaining energy and fuel stability has become a serious issue. Since the depleting major source of energy, fossil fuels are no longer considered as a good source of energy due to its effects on environment, the challenge in maintaining energy stability lies in finding alternative energy. This alternative energy source should be renewable and more friendly to environment compared to fossil fuels. Hence, biodiesel which is renewable has attracted great attention.
Currently, biodiesel is made from a variety of feed stocks including pure vegetable oils, waste cooking oil, and animal fat. As vegetable oils are also used for human consumption, using vegetable oil as a raw material for biodiesel may lead to an increase in price of food-grade oils. Moreover, this may lead to an increase cost of biodiesel production and thus unpopularize biodiesel usage.
Various researches have investigated a wide variety of microalgae, however, little has discussed growth of microalgae in a massive production. Previously, Chlorella sp. (obtained from TISTR) has been investigated [1]. The results showed possibility in using this strain of microalgae for a biodiesel production. However, the yields and quality of lipid obtained fluctuated from batch to batch. This is not promising, if Chlorella sp. is to be used for production of biodiesel. The variation was suggested to be due to the unreliability of tests used with small samples of lipid.
Hence, this research aims to investigate the growing Chlorella sp. in a large-scale and optimize the condition in order to archive yield close to those obtained from Chlorella sp. grown in small-scale. Moreover, yields and lipids quality will be evaluated to discuss possibility of using Chlorella sp. for biodiesel production. [continues]

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