Hydrogen (H2) gas is seen as an ideal future energy carrier because it is easily converted into electricity in fuel cells, liberates a large amount of energy per unit mass, and generates no air pollutants. In this work, biological hydrogen (bioH2) was produced from the microalgal biomass of Scenedesmus obliquus which was used as a substrate for the fermentation by Enterobacter aerogenes ATCC 13048 and Clostridi...
Chlorella vulgaris (Cv) biomass is widely used as a traditional food in the Orient and its safety for human consumption has been proved. However, carotenogenic biomass (orange), resulting from induced stresses, needs further safety evaluation, which is the aim of this study. The preliminary toxicological characterization of Cv consisted of a single dose (mice), repeated dose studies (mice and rats) and a biodis...
Factors such as an ageing population, increased health care costs and rapid advances in science and technology are likely driving the increase interest among consumers in attaining wellness through diet, which is in turn, fuelling interest in functional foods and changing the way that people eat. Microalgae have been largely cultured and commercialized as food and feed additives, their potential as source of hi...
The microalga Nannochloropsis sp. was used in this study, in a biorefinery context, as biomass feedstock for the production of fatty acids for biodiesel, biohydrogen and high added-value compounds. The microalgal biomass, which has a high lipid and pigment content (mainly carotenoids), was submitted to supercritical CO2 extraction. The temperature, pressure and solvent flow-rate were evaluated to check their ef...
Microalgae are one of the most promising sources for new food and functional food products, and can be used to enhance the nutritional value of foods, due to their well-balanced chemical composition. Knowing their physicochemical characteristics is fundamental for the selection of the most suitable microalgae to specific food technology applications and consequently successful novel foods development. The aim o...
Are microalgae a potential energy source for biofuel production? This paper presents the laboratory results from a Nannochloropsis sp. microalga biorefinery for the production of oil, high-value pigments, and biohydrogen (bioH2). The energy consumption and CO2 emissions involved in the whole process (microalgae cultivation, harvest, dewater, mill, extraction and leftover biomass fermentation) were evaluated. An...
This paper presents laboratory results of biological production of hydrogen by photoautrotophic cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. Additional hydrogen production from residual Cyanobacteria fermentation was achieved by Enterobacter aerogenes bacteria. The authors evaluated the yield of H2 production, the energy consumption and CO2 emissions and the technological bottlenecks and possible improvements of the whole energ...
Renewable, sustainable and carbon-neutral energy production is needed to deal with the challenges of growing energy demand and climate change. Hydrogen (H2) is most promising in the succession of fuel evolution, with several technical, socio-economic and environmental benefits to its credit [1]. It is an excellent energy carrier as it has the highest energy content per unit weight/mass of any known fuel (142 kJ...
In this work, the authors propose a microalga-based integrated system, where optimization of several energy vectors (biodiesel, bioethanol and bioH2) is highlighted under the concept of biorefinery (Project PTDC/AAC-AMB/100354/2008). This involves the integration of different processes such as oil and sugar extraction from microalgae for biodiesel and bioethanol production respectively, and bioH2 production fro...
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