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Consequences of Microbial Interactions with Hydrocarbons, Oils, and Lipids: Production of Fuels and Chemicals pp 75–85Cite as

Hydrocarbons from Algae

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Part of the book series: Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology ((HHLM))

Abstract

Hydrocarbons are detected in species of all algal phyla, but their contents are generally below 2% of algal dry weight skewed toward odd-carbon number, typically at C15, C17, or C21. Botryococcus braunii, a green colonial species (300–500 μm), contains exceptionally high hydrocarbons. Among the three races of B. braunii, race A contains C25–C31 n-alkadienes/trienes up to 61% dry weight and race B contains C31–C37 botryococcenes (triterpenes) up to 86% of dry weight. Race L contains lycopadienes (tetraterpene) C40H78 up to 8% dry weight. Cultures with 0.3% CO2-enriched air could shorten mass doubling time by 3.6 times. Nitrogen deficiency favors lipid accumulation, but nitrogen required for growth should be above 0.2 mg L−1. The optimal temperature for B. braunii is 20–25 °C with a light intensity of 60–100 Wm−2. Slow growth is the major hurdle retarding the production of hydrocarbon at a large scale. The combined approach of molecular biology, genetic engineering and ecology is recommended to escalate the algal growth and hydrocarbon production to yield a commercially competitive alternative for renewable biofuels from algae.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    J. G. Qin

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  1. J. G. Qin
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Correspondence to J. G. Qin .

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  1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea (Republic of)

    Sang Yup Lee

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Qin, J.G. (2017). Hydrocarbons from Algae. In: Lee, S. (eds) Consequences of Microbial Interactions with Hydrocarbons, Oils, and Lipids: Production of Fuels and Chemicals. Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50436-0_209

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