Production of biodiesel from wastewater grown <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Chlorella minutissima</i>

Abstract

The present study has been undertaken to assess integrated algal harvesting in sewage wastewater for biodiesel feedstock.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> Chlorella minutissima </i>microalgae<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> </i>are grown in wastewater from local hotel sewage drain and produced biomass is used to produce biodiesel. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">C. minutissima </i>effectively removes the wastewater nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus with the 99.19% and 96% removal respectively. Content of oil in produced algal biomass is drastically reduced i.e. 4% in response to <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic">57% of total dry biomass reported in literature. The extracted oil mainly consists of small chain fatty acids (C-16:0, C-18:1, C-18:2, C-18:3). Transesterification reaction shows that maximum fatty acid methyl ester (FAMEs) concentration is converted from free fatty acids of oil during 1-2 h at 65<span style="mso-bidi-font-family:" times="" new="" roman""="" lang="EN-GB">°C.

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