With the growing shortage of fossil energy sources, the development of biofuels with wide distribution, high oil content, strong environmental adaptability, and short growth cycle shows broad prospects for development. Some scholars even believe that microalgae is the ultimate outlet for solving energy and environmental problems. The microalgae energy industry is considered as a strategic emerging industry that integrates energy production, carbon reduction, and agricultural development.
Focusing on the broad prospects of algae biofuels, China has begun to lay out microalgae energy research aimed at bioenergy production from the “Eleventh Five-Year Planâ€. Many research institutes represented by the Institute of Oceanography, the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Biotechnology, Tsinghua University, and East China University of Technology have successively carried out the breeding and transformation of high-yield oleaginous species, efficient microalgal light reactors, and high Technologies such as density cultivation and high-efficiency processing have led to the formation of coupled culture techniques such as microalgal photosynthetic fermentation, high-efficiency low-cost hybrid reactor technology, high-performance thin-layer open-cell culture technology, high-efficiency CO2 carbon supplementation technology, and high-efficiency and low-cost wet algae. A number of innovative technologies, such as direct oil extraction technology and high-performance biodiesel catalytic conversion technology.
Compared with traditional biofuels, algae biofuels have the following advantages: First, high oil content. Algal dry matter contains more than 50% oil, up to 70%. The second is fast growth. Algae are the fastest growing plants in the world and can be harvested day after day. The third is strong environmental adaptability. Algae's ability to adapt to the environment is far superior to other oil crops. The fourth is to occupy less cultivated land. Algae account for 50% of marine living resources. Therefore, the development of algae biofuels can utilize vast oceans and save land resources. Fifth, high value-added products. Most algae produce high value-added products such as EPA, DHA, astaxanthin, carotene, phycocyanin, feed protein, etc. while producing oil. The comprehensive utilization of these high value-added products can greatly accelerate the development of algal biomass energy. Industrialization process. And, especially important, microalgae oil production has a carbon dioxide emission reduction effect. Calculated theoretically, 1 ton of microalgae can be produced per production and 1.83 tons of carbon dioxide can be captured.
As early as two years ago, Shanghai began to study new technologies that use algae to absorb carbon dioxide emitted by industry and manufacture biodiesel. If oil production is combined with carbon dioxide treatment, it is a very important research direction.
In 2010, at the China Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo Site, Xinao Group showed the latest progress in the key technology research of the national “863†project CO2-microalgae-biodiesel. The project absorbs carbon dioxide through cultured microalgae, and carries out photosynthesis, and finally forms biodiesel, carotenoids and other derivatives, which can turn carbon dioxide into waste. Xin'ao plans to use 3 to 5 years to allow “microalgae oil production†to leave the laboratory and realize industrialization.
In January of this year, the highly oily seawater microalgae cultivated by the Institute of Biology of the Shandong Academy of Sciences was identified as the international advanced level by the Shandong Provincial Department of Science and Technology. Under the laboratory conditions, scientific researchers use the cultivated microalgae to obtain the cost of biodiesel. The crude oil price is approximately US$100/barrel, which has reached the advanced level of similar international technologies; this cost is expected to decrease after large-scale cultivation. In order to create conditions for large-scale production.
At present, the overall level of algae bio-fuel related technologies in China is synchronized with that of foreign countries. The research ideas and progress in some areas are even leading. However, large-scale system construction, process optimization, and process evaluation still have a certain gap with foreign countries. In the future, China should further promote the breeding and transformation of independent intellectual property, the cultivation of large-scale cultivation and the innovation of key processing technologies, and establish a full-process integrated pilot demonstration system to lay the foundation for the demonstration of 10,000 tons of industrialization around 2020.
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