Microalgae Biomass Production: An Overview of Dynamic Operational Methods

Microalgae biomass is a promising and sustainable feedstock with wide range of applications for biofuel, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, functional foods, aquaculture, and nutraceutical. The production scheme for microalgae products comprises several stages of processing. It starts with microalgal strain development and cultivation, followed by microalgal biomass harvesting or separation from the culture media and consequent thickening, dewatering, drying, and target product extraction. Efficient and cost-effective harvesting and drying approaches severely affect the overall energy consumption and production cost of microalgal-based products in a large scale. There are plenty of reviews and research articles available on various cultures and harvesting technologies of microalgae biomass generation. However very few articles are available on the drying and storage methods of biomass. Thus, in this chapter we provide a short overview of strain selection, cultivation, and harvesting, with additional importance in drying and storage advancement along with the advantages and disadvantages of various methods documented till now.