Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.51, No.31, 10503-10508, 2012
Growth and Oil Extraction from Chlorella vulgaris: A Techno-Economic and Environmental Assessment
In this work, the technical, economic, and environmental viability of the growth, harvest, drying, and extraction of oil from Chlorella vulgaris was evaluated. A flue stream from a rice husk processing plant was taken as the substrate for microalgae growth and the production of 1 ton/h of microalgae oil. The mass and energy balances were calculated using Aspen Plus Software. The economic assessment was developed using Aspen Process Economic Analyzer Software. The environmental impact evaluation was carried out using the waste reduction algorithm (WAR). The yields of the process were 0.37 kg of oil/kg of dry microalgae and 0.63 kg of cake/kg of dry microalgae. The production costs were 0.56 USD/kg of oil and 0.33 USD/kg of cake. The potential environmental impact was 0.003 PEI/kg of product. The results indicate significant mitigation of smog formation potential because gases are used to generated value-added products.