Chemistry of microalgal oil

Abstract

The terms, algal oil, biofuel and biodiesel are found in newspaper articles all over the world every day. Several airlines demonstrated that biofuel can be utilized as jet fuel. In particular, the industrial world is interested in microalgal oil, and is discussing the possibility of algal oil obtained from diatoms and green algae. In this review, the basic chemistry on microalgal lipids is given as a simple plain description, and findings on the utilization of microalgal lipids are also explained.