title: Biodiesel production from heterotrophic microalgal oil.
abstract: The present study introduced an integrated method for the production of biodiesel from microalgal oil. Heterotrophic growth of Chlorella protothecoides resulted in the accumulation of high lipid content (55%) in cells. Large amount of microalgal oil was efficiently extracted from these heterotrophic cells by using n-hexane. Biodiesel comparable to conventional diesel was obtained from heterotrophic microalgal oil by acidic transesterification. The best process combination was 100% catalyst quantity (based on oil weight) with 56:1 molar ratio of methanol to oil at temperature of 30 degrees C, which reduced product specific gravity from an initial value of 0.912 to a final value of 0.8637 in about 4h of reaction time. The results suggested that the new process, which combined bioengineering and transesterification, was a feasible and effective method for the production of high quality biodiesel from microalgal oil.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China.
authors.forename: Xiaoling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.forename: Qingyu
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D001709:Biotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D002384:Catalysis; D002708:Chlorella / Q000378:metabolism*; D005742:Gasoline; D000432:Methanol / Q000737:chemistry; D009821:Oils / Q000378:metabolism; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D005742:Gasoline; D009821:Oils; D000432:Methanol