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Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy / Volume 2 / Issue 1 / REVIEW ARTICLES

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 2, 012701 (2010); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3294480 (15 pages)

Dewatering of microalgal cultures: A major bottleneck to algae-based fuels

Nyomi Uduman, Ying Qi, Michael K. Danquah, Gareth M. Forde, and Andrew Hoadley

Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Wellington Road, Clayton, Victoria 3800, Australia

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(Received 22 July 2009; accepted 22 December 2009; published online 12 January 2010)

Microalgae dewatering is a major obstruction to industrial-scale processing of microalgae for biofuel production. The dilute nature of harvested microalgal cultures creates a huge operational cost during dewatering, thereby, rendering algae-based fuels less economically attractive. Currently there is no superior method of dewatering microalgae. A technique that may result in a greater algal biomass may have drawbacks such as a high capital cost or high energy consumption. The choice of which harvesting technique to apply will depend on the species of microalgae and the final product desired. Algal properties such as a large cell size and the capability of the microalgae to autoflocculate can simplify the dewatering process. This article reviews and addresses the various technologies currently used for dewatering microalgal cultures along with a comparative study of the performances of the different technologies.

© 2010 American Institute of Physics

Article Outline

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION OF DEWATERING PERFORMANCE
  3. DEWATERING TECHNOLOGIES
    1. Centrifugation
    2. Flocculation
      1. Polyelectrolyte flocculants
      2. Inorganic flocculants
      3. Combined flocculation
      4. Autoflocculation
      5. Marine microalgal flocculation
    3. Filtration and screening
      1. Tangential flow filtration
    4. Gravity sedimentation
    5. Flotation
      1. Dissolved air flotation
      2. Dispersed air flotation
    6. Electrophoresis techniques
      1. Electrolytic coagulation
      2. Electrolytic flotation
      3. Electrolytic flocculation
  4. CONCLUSION

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

bioenergy conversion, biofuel, energy consumption, energy harvesting

PACS

  • 88.20.F-

    Renewable alternative fuels from biomass energy

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3294480

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

1941-7012 (print)  
1941-7012 (online)

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Institute of Physics

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