The algae advantage: Biofuel breakthroughs to fuel a green future

Microalgae presents an opportunity to solve two of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time; the need for clean energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Their contribution to this lies in their innate ability to produce high amounts of oil. This oil can then be extracted from the microalgae and used in biofuel applications. While the idea of “biofuels”, energy sources derived from organic materials, is nothing new, their current production methods can work against global environmental needs. Biofuels are largely derived from food crops, like corn or soybean (1,2). While this is objectively better than relying on fossil fuels, they require high amounts of arable land, and the water demand of these crops can also be quite high (3,4). Microalgae, plants evolutionary predecessors, cannot only produce these same oils, but also can do this without relianceon harmful agricultural practices. Due to this, there is a growing amount of research aiming to better understand this process in microalgae, and optimize it to obtain the highest yields of oil. Many microalgae species are known oil producers, and have been well characterized. One of these is Nannochloropsis oceanica,a microalgae that can accumulate up to 60% of its dry weight in oil (5). Many others exist, such as Chaetoceros gracilis, which can reportedly accumulate up to 200 mg/L of oil (6). In general, the high energy density of microalgae allows them to produce significantly higher yields of oil than the traditional crops used in biofuel production (7). Downstream applications of this oil are already being explored. An assessment of diesel engine performance was done using biodiesel derived from the microalgae Spirulina. Here, it was seen that the biodiesel’s combustion performance was comparable with diesel (8). Even better, a mixture of diesel and Spirulina-derived biodiesel had better engine performance compared to pure diesel (8). Economically, microalgae-based biofuel production also has potential. Microalgae can be grown and harvested like a crop, using outdoor pond systems (9). While this would require land mass, it would not need to be arable land, and would still not compare to the high land mass required in traditional crop growth. Algae cultivation can be integrated into existing agricultural operations, stimulating a new industry and roles within agriculture. Not only this, but algal biofuels can fortify our energy security, as they offer a domestically produced energy and fuel source, reducing dependency on foreign imports and creating new jobs in green energy. Outside of oil production, microalgae can also have many other benefits that can be achieved in tandem with biofuel production. One of these is carbon sequestration. As these organisms are photosynthetic, when being grown in mass amounts they would capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This could be done in such a manner to directly capture emitted carbon, directly linking carbon dioxide mitigation and bioenergy production (10). There are some existing barriers to microalgae biofuel production in regards to optimizing microalgal growth and also the conversion of the oil obtained from the microalgae to the correct fuel. While these issues are still withstanding, the objective advantages of using microalgae to obtain biofuel make it worth our time to solve them.

Suggested readings and references:

1. Ranjan Padhan, S. et al. inNew Prospects of Maize(InTechOpen, 2024). 3,4 5 6 10 9

2. Van Gerpen, J. & Knothe,G. in Soybeans: Chemistry, Production, Processing and Utilization 499–538 (AOCS Press, 2008).

3.Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Land used for palm fruit oil production – FAO” [dataset]. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Production: Crops and livestock products” [original data].

4. Ludwig, F., Biemans, H., Jacobs, C., Supit, I., Diepen, K.V., & Fawell, J.K. Water use of oil crops: currentwater use and future outlooks.Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2009)

5. Ma, Y., Wang, Z., Yu, C., Yin, Y. & Zhou, G. Evaluation of the potential of 9 Nannochloropsis strains for biodiesel production. Bioresource Technology 167, 503–509 (2014).

6. Tokushima, H. et al. Advantageous characteristics of the diatomChaetoceros gracilis as a sustainable biofuel producer. Biotechnology for Biofuels 9, (2016).

7. Md Nasir, N.-A. N., Islam, A. K., Anuar, N. & Yaakob, Z. Genetic improvement and challenges for cultivation of microalgae for biodiesel: A Review. Mini-Reviews in Organic Chemistry 16, 277–289 (2019).

8. Rajak, U., Nashine,P. & Verma, T. N. Assessment of diesel engine performance using spirulina microalgae biodiesel. Energy 166, 10251036 (2019).

9. Skifa, I., Chauchat, N., Cocquet, P.-H.& Guer, Y. L. Microalgae cultivation in raceway ponds: Advances, challenges, and hydrodynamic considerations. EFB Bioeconomy Journal 5, 100073 (2025).

10. Onyeaka, H. et al. Minimizing carbonfootprint via microalgae as a biological capture. Carbon Capture Science& Technology 1, 100007 (2021).

Contributed by Hannah Lye

Masters Student

Guelph

Hannah Lye is a first year Master’s student, under the supervision of Dr. Yang Xu at the University of Guelph, in Guelph, Ontario. Her Master’s research focuses on characterizing oil metabolism in the microalgae Nannochloropsis oceanica. Hannah completed her BSc (Hons.) in Synthetic Biology at Western.