Biomass enhancement and bioconversion of brown marine microalgal lipid using heterogeneous catalysts mediated transesterification from biowaste derived biochar and bionanoparticle

• Published in: Fuel (Guildford) 2019-11, Vol.255, p.115789, Article 115789
• Main Authors: Anto, Susaimanickam, Karpagam, Rathinasamy, Renukadevi, Ponnuswamy, Jawaharraj, Kalimuthu, Varalakshmi, Perumal
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algae; Alternative fuels; Biochar; Bioconversion; Biodiesel; Biodiesel fuels; Biofuels; Biomass; Catalysis; Catalysts; Charcoal; Chlorophyll; Depletion; Diesel; Fossil fuels; Fourier transforms; Fuels; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Heterogeneous catalyst; Infrared spectroscopy; Iron; Isochrysis; Lipids; Microalgae; Nanoparticles; Oryza; Phaeodactylum tricornutum; Scanning electron microscopy; Spectroscopy; Spectrum analysis; Transesterification; Urea; Ureas; X-ray spectroscopy
• ISSN: 0016-2361; 1873-7153
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2019.115789

•Marine brown algae Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Isochrysis sp. were used for biodiesel production.•Media optimization with urea and rice husks increased biomass concentration.•Biochar and iron nanoparticles from plant leaves were used as catalysts.•Heterogeneous bio-derived catalysts enhanced mass % of FAME recovery. Concerns over the depletion of fossil fuels are increasing to minimize the exhaustive use of fuels and thereby decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions. Alternatives such as microalgae are one such renewable biomass which mitigates the issues. In this study, RSM revealed the significant increase in biomass productivity which was observed as 26.54 ± 0.15 μg/mL and 25.82 ± 0.95 μg/mL chlorophyll c concentration than control (22.08 ± 0.74 μg/mL and 8.57 ± 0.42 μg/mL) for Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Isochrysis sp. at 0.1 g/L urea, 2 mL/L rice husk and 0.017 g/L urea, 4.5 mL/L rice husk respectively. In addition, the cost effective heterogeneous bio-catalysts, biochar and bioderived iron nanoparticles for enhanced transesterification showed higher mass % of recovered FAME than conventional acid catalysts for both the marine brown microalgae for biodiesel production and were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET). Hence the present study imparts the use of bio-catalysts mediated transesterification to produce cost effective and eco friendly biodiesel from both Phaeodactylum tricornutum and Isochrysis sp. as a valuable feedstock.