Biorefinery for Microalgal Biomass at an Industrial Production Scale

Latest trend influences consumers to opt for healthy and natural products, which forces the industry to research and develop natural products that have functional ingredients. A natural source of functional ingredients is microalgae which has positive health impacts as these microorganisms are producer of bioactive peptides, essential minerals, enzymes, natural pigments, polysaccharides, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and vitamins. Microalgae are commercially utilized for producing chemical reagents, cosmeceuticals, functional food, nutraceuticals, and living feed and feed additives. Microalgae are also crucial for biofuel development along with environmental protection. The major microalgal products are derived from its biomass; though, mass cultivation produces large quantity of spent cell free media which is still unexploited. Certain extracellular metabolites can possibly be used as antioxidants, drugs, growth regulators or metal chelators. It is important to understand these microalgal extracellular metabolites that may be commercially used. The production process for these microalgal products is moderately economically viable; however, inflated downstream processing cost has impeded commercialization of microalgal biofuels. Hence, a promising solution for development of relevant agricultural, industrial, and pharmaceutical value-added products is the simultaneous extraction of these products during bioenergy production in a biorefinery approach. Thus, microalgal biorefinery helps meet the increasing demands of energy, food and pharmaceutical industries.