Shivasuriya Sanath*, Shaposhnikov Roman, Sola Lorenzo and Sperindio Riccardo

Department of Biology and Biotechnology "Lazzaro Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Italy

*Corresponding Author: Shivasuriya Sanath, Department of Biology and Biotechnology "Lazzaro Spallanzani", University of Pavia, Italy.

Received: April 15, 2021; Published: June 25, 2021

Abstract

Interest in biofuels production and usage has increased worldwide as part of government policies to address the growing scarcity and riskiness of petroleum use, and, at least in theory, to help mitigate adverse global climate change caused by them. In this written assay the authors have dealt some different methods to produce biofuels and their environmental and economic impact. They focused on oleaginous microorganisms, organisms that can accumulate a great amount of lipids; belong to this class some yeasts, fungi, bacterium and microalgae. The latters are microscopic photosynthetic microorganisms that represent the most important oleaginous microorganisms in terms of production. Indeed, another topic treated in this work is the microalgae genetic engineering modifications, such as overexpression or downregulation of genes involved in the lipids metabolism, in order to produce a high amount of these molecules for the conversion of them into biodiesel. Subsequently, the beneficial effects on the environment derived from the combustion of this biofuel compared with its counterpart, the petrol diesel, have been described. The problems related to the cultivation on large-scale and the poor knowledge of basic biology that make impossible the industrial production of microalgae, have also been analyzed. On the other hand, another treated subject is the fungal and bacterial depolymerization of lignin in order to produce biofuels. The lignin, a plant derived compound, represent one of the most abundant polymers in the biosphere, unfortunately it presents a very complex structure with some chemically inert bond. For these reasons research is still at the beginning, so nowadays we cannot speak about polluting effects and large-scale production, with the consequent economic impact, of biofuel derived from this source.

Keywords: Biofuels; Microalgae; Biology

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Citation

Citation: Shivasuriya Sanath., et al. “The Green Biofuel Conundrum: Technological Advances Versus Economic and Environmental Implications ”. Acta Scientific Microbiology 4.7 (2021): 137-144.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2021 Shivasuriya Sanath., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.