Algaculture is a form of aquaculture involving the farming of species of algae. The majority of algae that are intentionally cultivated fall into the category of microalgae (also referred to as phytoplankton, microphytes, or planktonic algae). Macroalgae, commonly known as seaweed, also have many commercial and industrial uses. Still, due to their size and the specific requirements of the environment in which they need to grow, they do not lend themselves as readily to cultivation (this may change, however, with the advent of newer seaweed cultivators, which are algae scrubbers using upflowing air bubbles in small containers). Commercial and industrial algae cultivation has numerous uses, including food ingredients such as omega-3 fatty acids or natural food colorants and dyes, food, fertilizer, bioplastics, chemical feedstock (raw material), pharmaceuticals, etc. algal fuel. It can also be used as a means of pollution control. Global production of farmed aquatic plants, overwhelmingly dominated by seaweeds, grew in output volume from 13.5 million tonnes in 1995 to just over 30 million tonnes in 2016.
Published in Chapter:
A Sustainable Supply Chain Model for the Development of Green Fuel Production From Microalgae
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-6684-2438-4.ch013
Abstract
This study presents designing and managing a green fuel supply chain based on algae to investigate the development of such fuels in the country. On this basis, a definitive model is first developed to model all the activities of the green fuel supply chain, which includes the supply of raw materials for the growth of algae, the cultivation of algae and their conversion into fuel, and finally, the supply of fuel in the country. This deterministic model is extended to a robust network model to secure supply chain decisions against uncertainty. Using the proposed model for the development of algal fuels in Iran shows that the green fuel production cost is currently 27 cents/liter. The current cost of producing fuel from algae cannot compete with fossil fuels, but this cost can be greatly reduced in the future by slightly increasing the growth rate of algae and their oil content.