(625c) Microbial Triacylglycerols As Feedstocks for Biodiesel Production: Perspectives and Cost Analysis

The concept of using microbial oil as an alternative source of lipid-rich biomass raw material for the production of biodiesel has been studied within the past decade. However, the commercial viability of microbial biodiesel production has not yet been achieved. The cost for microbial lipid production needs to be reduced to be competitive with traditional vegetable oils. To achieve this aim, it is necessary to determine the costs arisen from various processing steps. A study was conducted to produce biodiesel from microbial oil produced by the oleaginous yeast Rhodotorula glutinis. In order to potentially offset some of the cost associated with the biodiesel production, pulp and paper wastewater was used as a fermentation medium for microbial lipid production. The goal of this study is to determine the optimum and cost-efficient yield of biodiesel produced from microbial oil. Various cost related economic factors such as, capital cost, total manufacturing cost, and the break even price were determined. A simplified cost analysis of the microbial lipid production process was performed in order to draw a realistic sketch of the current cost and to develop new perspectives to reduce the microbial lipid production cost.