Evaluation of Potential Bioethanol Production from the Indigenous Microalgae of Iran

Industrial growth and population raising lead to rapid increase in worldwide energy demand. Due to the depletion of fossil fuels and their contribution to the global warming, the world requires alternative sources of energy to meet the global demands of energy. One of the most popular source of energy is bioenergy in form of bioethanol since it is clean, cheap, renewable and compatible to the environmental issue. Iran produced 5% of global total capacity of bioethanol equal to 5.3 billion liters (4.2 billion tons) at 2011. In recent years, bioethanol production from microalgae biomass is getting more attraction due to the shorter cycle of algal growth compared to other plants and its abundance in nature. Chlorella sp, Dunaliella sp, Spirulina sp and Chlomydomonas sp are some microalgae strains existing in Iran which have the potential to produce bioethanol. In this paper, the potential source of indigenous microalgae of Iran (including Persian Gulf, Urmia Lake, Maharloo lake and Gavkhoony ...) is presented. In order to introduce suitable species for production of bioethanol, the results on potential amount of obtainable bioethanol from each microalgae (as biorefinery platform) is illustrated

کلیدواژه ها:

Biorefinery ، Microalgae ، Bioethanol ، Indigenous species