An overview of algae bioethanol production

Because of rapid growth in population and industrialization, worldwide ethanol demand is increasing continuously. The first-generation and second-generation biofuels are unable to meet the global demand of bioethanol production because of their primary value of food and feed. Therefore, algae are among the most potentially significant sources of sustainable biofuels in the future of renewable energy because of the accumulating high starch/cellulose and because they are widely distributed in nature. The focus of this paper is to review the production and recent advances in research and development in the algae bioethanol, including pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation of algae biomass. Despite the many developments made in the recent years, commercialization of algal bioethanol remains challenging chiefly because of the techno-economic constraints. Technological breakthroughs in all major aspects must be overcome before it can be a successfully large-scale and commercialized product. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.