Biotechnology Applications and Industries in Energy

• Biotechnology Applications and Industries focus on energy as their topic

Recalling Biotechnology Classifications

• Green Biotechnology: involves agricultural processes, crop improvement, and novel product production.
• Blue Biotechnology: uses marine organisms.
• Red Biotechnology: employs healthcare processes, utilizing the body's tools to combat diseases.
• White Biotechnology: connects with industry and environmental processes, saving water, energy, and chemicals while reducing waste.

Industrial Biotechnology

• Utilizes enzymes and micro-organisms to produce bio-based products in manufacturing.
• Biotechnology is used to produce new products for people.
• Basic applications include beer, wine, alcohol, chemicals, food ingredients, washing detergents, paper, textiles, sugar, plastics, fabrics, biofuels, vaccines, and antibiotics.

Sustainability and Green Biotech Solutions

• Bio-based innovations are reducing reliance on fossil fuels in the energy sector.
• Engineered microorganisms are used to produce renewable biofuels and biodegradable plastics, reducing carbon emissions and plastic waste.

Biofuel Defined

• Biofuel is produced from biomass over a short time, contrasting with slow natural processes that form fossil fuels like oil.
• It can be produced from plants, agricultural, domestic, or industrial bio-waste.

Shift to Sustainable Production

• Over the last 20 years, the focus has been on developing sustainable production processes.
• The goal is to replace petroleum-based or derived fuels, chemicals, and materials.
• Large chemical companies like BASF, BP, and Total have launched projects in metabolic engineering.

Biomass as a Renewable Resource

• Biomass is a potential energy source to meet global demand.
• Bio-fuels, including liquid, gaseous, and solid products, come from different biomass sources and are classified into first, second, and third generations.

First Generation Bio-fuels

• Mainly derived from food crops such as sugarcane, corn, vegetable oils, soybean, and palm oil.
• Using them became controversial due to environmentally destructive effects, high water and fertilizer needs, and food supply competition.

Second Generation Bio-fuels

• Derived from municipal waste and lignocellulosic feedstocks.
• These reduce net carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency compared to first-generation biofuels.
• However have limitations due to competition with land for food production and high costs from removing lignin.
• Significant exploitation is limited by costly technologies for cellulosic biomass conversion.

Third Generation Bio-fuels

• Mainly derived from algal biomass, presenting a better alternative resource without the drawbacks of first- and second-generation biofuels.

Characteristics of Algae

• They are simple aquatic organisms in fresh or saline water.
• Can convert sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into algal biomass using photosynthesis.
• Algal biomasses are ideal third-generation biofuel feedstocks due to advantages like fast growth, CO2 fixation, and growth potential in non-arable lands and wastewaters.
• Problems: large-scale production of algal biomass and cost-efficient generation of final bio-fuel products.

Algal Biomass Potential

• Algal biomasses are promising sources of lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates.
• These components can convert into needed energy in different fuel forms, determined by conversion process type.

Conversion Processes

• Transesterification: used for biodiesel production.
• Anaerobic digestion: produces biomethane.
• Fermentation: creates bioethanol.
• Thermochemical conversion: yields bio-oil.
• Biophotolysis: produces hydrogen biofuel.

Algal Biomass Energy Conversion

• Valuable energy products from algae are mainly produced through thermochemical, biochemical, and chemical pathways.
• Thermochemical conversion techniques use heat/chemical catalysts to produce bio-oil, biochar, and gaseous products.
• Chemical/biochemical processes create bio-diesel, ethanol, and hydrogen.

Pyrolysis of Algal Biomass

• Pyrolysis, a popular thermochemical conversion, thermally degrades biomass components in an inert atmosphere.
• It produces biofuel from algal biomass.
• The yield and quality of its products depend on temperature, heating rate, catalyst, and other variables.
• It is considered one of the most studied, and one of the top methods in discussion.
• It turns algal biomass into solid, liquid, and gaseous biofuels, potentially substituting unsustainable fossil fuels to meet rising global energy needs.

Pyrolysis Byproducts

• Pyrolyzed products like bio-oil, biochar, and gas can be used as fuel for energy generation.
• Biochar, by itself is effective as fertilizer to improve crop yield/plant nutrition and removes heavy metals/pollutants.

Factors Affecting Bio-fuel Yields and Quality

• Algae properties, chemical composition, moisture content, and particle size.
• Process conditions, including temperature, reaction time, heating rate, and carrier gas flow rate.
• catalyst type and configuration, and dosage

Algae as Carbon Source

• Algae are eukaryotic organisms and carbon sources for energy.
• Algae resources are divided into microalgae and macroalgae groups based on size.
• Microalgae are photosynthetic, microscopic organisms ranging from a few micrometers to hundreds of micrometers.
• Macroalgae can reach lengths of 80 meters.

Algae Groups

• Major groups of micro- and macroalgae include green algae (Chlorophyta), red algae (Rhodophyta) and brown algae (Heterokontophyta, Class Phaeophyceae).
• Diatoms (Phylum Heterokontophyta, Class Bacillariophyceae), and golden algae (Chrysophyceae).
• Cyanobacteria is a group of photosynthetic unicellular bacteria.
• Algae can rapidly produce carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins.

Algae Biomass Analysis

• Algae biomass is characterized by proximate analysis (ash, volatile matter, fixed carbon content), and elemental analysis (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur content).
• Chemical composition (protein, lipid, carbohydrate content) and high heating value (HHV) also investigated.
• Algal, microalgal, and macroalgal biomasses have proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids (oil).

Biofuel Production Steps

• Biofuels require the cultivation of algal biomass, harvesting, drying (dewatering), extraction of lipids and carbohydrates and finally the conversion of lipids and carbohydrates to biofuels.

Advantages of Algae

• Rapid growth and year-round cultivation result in higher bio-oil yield.
• Algae do not compete with land used for food production.
• Less farming land needed and have a higher oil yield per unit area compared to other plant sources.
• Can be cultivated in non-arable lands with saline/brackish water.
• Need less water than terrestrial crops.
• Grow in wastewater, receiving nutrients and acting as bioremediation agents by extracting harmful compounds.
• Algae reduces issues involved with the use of fertilizers/pesticides and reduces environmental impacts by using hazardous chemicals.
• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions from carbon dioxide by biofixation of industrial flue gases.
• Seaweed algae reduces problems from its waste by being used for biofuel production.

Algae Biofuel Production

• Algal biomass can be converted to energy via different techniques like: -- Thermochemical through gasification, liquefaction, pyrolysis, and direct combustion. -- Biochemical using anaerobic digestion and fermentation. -- Chemical with help from esterification/transestrification.
• Extensive research done on pyrolysis of algal biomass isn't commercially viable and needs in-depth studies.
• Establishing processes for the output of sustainable chemicals has been minor in transforming, from petroleum-based chemicals to bio-based due to the limited impacts this effort produced.

The applications of biotechnology include green, blue, red and white applications. It involves the use of marine organisms, healthcare processes, and industrial processes to produce bio-based products. Bio-based innovations are reducing reliance on fossil fuels in the energy sector.