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Increasing Demand For Renewable Fuels

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Increasing demand for renewable fuels has researchers investigating the feasibility of alternative feedstocks, including microalgae. Inherent advantages of microalgae include high potential yield, use of non-arable land, and integration with waste streams. Large-scale production of biofuel from microalgae will require the integration of growth platforms with point source carbon dioxide such as coal derived flue gas. The introduction of this waste stream into the growth system will inevitably introduce trace heavy metals which have a high affinity to bind to microalgal cells, could be toxic to the cells, and if transferred to the microalgae could impact the end use of the derived products. heavy metals As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, …show more content…

2.2 Introduction
Global demand for energy is putting increased pressure on various resources including traditional fossil reserves while igniting interest in the development of substitute energy such as non-traditional fossil reserves, alternative energy and biobased energy. Negative environmental impacts associated with the consumption of fossil fuels have further inspired the development and investigation of alternative energy resources. The US annually consumes approximately 100 quadrillion BTUs of energy with 80% being derived from fossil sources corresponding to 5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, with approximately 30% of those emissions derived from the combustion of coal for electrical energy production [1,2]. Recent regulation on the reduction of carbon emissions from coal has further sparked the evaluation of the synergistic integration of microalgae production with coal based flue gas as the carbon source [3,4]. Further, microalgae represent a promising alternative biofuel feedstock with high productivity rates, year round cultivation, integration with various waste streams, and the use of low quality land and water [5]. The technical evaluation of microalgae based biofuel systems has been traditionally performed through techno-economics and life cycle assessment with the majority of these evaluations assuming the seamless integration of

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