Recent Trends for Production of Biofuels Using Algal Biomass

Industrial revolution not only brings comforts to life but also leads to many problems. One of them is limited supply of energy resources; the other is global warming and environmental pollution by burning fossil fuels. These problems lead scientists towards the idea of biofuels. But the production of first and second generation biofuels has many challenges including food vs. fuel war. Recently the production of biofuels by algal biomass also called as third generation biofuels has gained attention. Algal biomass can not only be converted to all forms of energy resources like biodiesel and biogas, but also are ecofriendly as they recycle the CO2 in the environment and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases as in the case of fossil fuel. But there is need for modern methodology and instrumentation to obtain biofuels from algae. This chapter is about cultivation and harvesting of different algal strains, production of different types of fuels from algal biomass, genetic engineering of algal strains to obtain maximum lipid content, etc.