Towards a greener future: biorefinery approaches for sustainable algae-based products

The biorefinery concept holds promise when it comes to the production of bioproducts. While there are many biological inputs that a biorefinery can process into economically-valued products, microalgae and macroalgae (seaweeds) have been attracting a great deal of interest. They find use in food, phycocolloid production, sources of renewable energy, and in biopharmaceutical, and nutraceutical industries. Being efficient in the conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide to useful biomolecules, biorefineries employing them as raw materials can truncate their demand for process-energy and chemicals, while attenuating their waste generation challenges to a substantial extent. However, some challenges like enhancement of the microalgae growth rate, and dehydration/drying of the algal culture during the preprocessing stages, need to be overcome by resorting to sustainable approaches. Microalgal biomass is not only used for the production of biofuels but also for the production of bio-electricity, bio-methane, bio-ethanol, and biodiesel. This chapter reviews the advantages of microalgae for the production of biofuels and various bioactive compounds.