Recent trends and challenges of algal biofuel conversion technologies

The rapid growth in global energy demands has triggered the scientific community to explore new stepwise biofuel conversion approaches. Biofuels are considered as one of the most promising renewable alternatives to meet the global energy crisis and environmental concerns. Microalgae biomass has proven the potentiality for the production of biofuels, chemicals, and bio-based products leading to the transition from petroleum-based economy to a bio-based economy. Algal biofuel offers a number of advantages, for example, higher growth rate with no competition with food and minimal or no environmental impacts. Biofuel produced from microalgae has low viscosity and low density with high caloric value compared to cellulosic biofuel, which makes algal biofuel more suitable for the application. This chapter outlines the progress on the biofuels production from algal biomass. The process description of possible algal biofuel routes underlining the challenges associated with large-scale production have been detailed in this chapter.