RT journal article
T1 Heterotrophic vs autotrophic production of microalgae: Bringing some light into the everlasting cost controversy
A1 Ruiz González, Jesús
A1 Wijffels, Rene H.
A1 Domínguez Gómez, Manuel
A1 Barbosa, Maria J.
A2 Tecnologías del Medio Ambiente
K1 Techno-economic analysis
K1 Microalgae
K1 Autotrophic
K1 Heterotrophic
K1 Production cost
AB Heterotrophic or autotrophic? This is the continuous question the industry faces when microalgae production is the endeavor. Surprisingly, nowadays specialists have not reached a consensus on which is the most economical option. The current work analyses costs for heterotrophic and autotrophic cultivation of microalgae at an industrial scale. Heterotrophic cultivation of microalgae results in a production cost of 4.00 €·kg−1 of dry weight as a centrifuged paste. This is within the range of autotrophic costs, but still above the production cost in some photobioreactors. The study also identifies the current limitations on the technology and studies the effect on the cost of overcoming these. Once achieved, the advances in the process could result in a heterotrophic production cost reduced to 1.08 €·kg−1. Autotrophic cultivation seems competitive with heterotrophic production. It is time to leap forward in the autotrophic production scale to achieve the critical reduction in production cost. © 2022 The Authors
PB ELSEVIER
SN 2211-9264
YR 2022
FD 2022-05
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/26580
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/26580
LA eng
NO This work was supported by the project titled MAGNIFICENT - “Microalgae As a Green source from Nutritional Ingredients for Food/Feed and Ingredients for Cosmetics by cost effective New Technologies”, funded by Bio-based Industries Joint Technology Initiative under H2020 of the European Research Council [project ID: 745754 ].
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 12-nov-2026