Institute of Biology, University of Leipzig, Johannisallee 23, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2011 Dec;92(5):909-19. doi: 10.1007/s00253-011-3627-2. Epub 2011 Oct 18.
Microalgal based biofuels are discussed as future sustainable energy source because of their higher photosynthetic and water use efficiency to produce biomass. In the context of climate CO2 mitigation strategies, algal mass production is discussed as a potential CO2 sequestration technology which uses CO2 emissions to produce biomass with high-oil content independent on arable land. In this short review, it is presented how complete energy balances from photon to harvestable biomass can help to identify the limiting processes on the cellular level. The results show that high productivity is always correlated with high metabolic costs. The overall efficiency of biomass formation can be improved by a photobioreactor design which is kinetically adapted to the rate-limiting steps in cell physiology. However, taking into account the real photon demand per assimilated carbon and the energy input for biorefinement, it becomes obvious that alternative strategies must be developed to reach the goal of a real CO2 sequestration.
微藻生物燃料因其更高的光合作用和用水效率来生产生物质而被讨论为未来可持续的能源。在气候 CO2 缓解策略的背景下，藻类的大规模生产被讨论为一种潜在的 CO2 封存技术，它利用 CO2 排放来生产具有高含油量的生物质，而不依赖耕地。在这篇简短的综述中，展示了如何从光子到可收获生物质的完整能量平衡可以帮助确定细胞水平上的限制过程。结果表明，高生产力总是与高代谢成本相关。通过动力学上适应细胞生理学中限速步骤的光生物反应器设计，可以提高生物质形成的整体效率。然而，考虑到每同化一个碳所需的实际光子需求和生物炼制的能量投入，很明显必须开发替代策略来实现真正的 CO2 封存的目标。
