Crafting the Synergistic Fusion of Algal Cultivation with Effective Industrial CO2 Mitigation

Abstract

Amongall challenges facing humanity today, global warming has become a major concern in the last two decades due to an increase of almost 2.41 mg.L-1of carbon dioxide (CO2) every year in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. Although many CO2 capture technologies have ramped up significantly in the last few decades, most of them are still not sustainable with scanty economic incentive to use it. Harnessing the inherent ability of photosynthetic microorganisms as algae to capture and convert CO2 into value added products and fuels has great prospective for utilization of atmospheric carbon waste. A synergistic union of algal cultivation with effective mitigation of CO2 emitted from power plants has been proved as economically viable and energetically feasible as algae can fix CO2 ten times greater than terrestrial plants. In order to meet current bio-economy challenges to produce high-value multiple products at a time, new integrated strategies are necessary for algal cultivation with cost-effective CO2 capturing from thermoelectric plants. The feasibility of large-scale algal cultivation depends on various physico-chemical parameters, affecting growth as well as carbon mitigation efficiency, directly or indirectly. This paper highlights the vital variables which help to craft an efficient algae cultivation system particularly for effective industrial CO2 mitigation. It includes algal-bacteria interactions, physicochemical conditions, cultivation system and utilization of produced algal biomass toward value addition. The aim is to apply the fundamentals of algae based integrated approaches to capture CO2 and achieve a green economy that improves the quality of energy, environment, and health of mankind.