Net energy analysis of the microalgae biorefinery

Recently a novel bio refinery process with using nonedible biomass, especially microalgae, has been developed in order to directly reduce CO₂ concentration from flue gas and simultaneously produce renewable bio fuel. Micro algae-to-biofuel processes are composed of microalgae cultivation, harvesting, lipid extraction, and bio fuel conversion. So, there are concerns about the energy efficiencies of bio refinery processes. In this study, the net energy ratio of microalgae processes were calcu-lated for the microalgae produced from a pilot photobioreacto using CO₂ released from coal combustion. In this study, trans-esterification and pyrolysis processes were used to analyze the net energy efficiencies. Micro algae-to-biofuel processes might produce bio fuels with the higher energy than that of the total consumed energy for cultivation, harvesting, extraction and conversion. If the lipid content of microalgae was higher, the trans-esterification conversion process was more effective than that of pyrolysis process.