Oleaginous microbes as

source of biodiesel
production
Why biofuels?
Excessive consumption of fossil fuel in transport and industries may cause
 Scarcity of fossil fuel

 Increased the price of fuels

 Global warming and increased green house effect by producing

• Carbon dioxide

• Carbon mono oxide

• Methane

• Sulfur oxide &

• Nitrogen oxide
Biodiesel

Biodiesel is one of the most prominent renewable energy resources. It is a methyl

or ethyl ester formed by transesterification of fatty acids, such as oil derived from

plants, animals, organic waste, and microorganisms.

Biodiesel contains more O2 than petroleum diesel and has higher combustion

efficiency with lower sulfur and aromatic content

Generation of Biodiesel
According to the feedstock of production, biodiesel was categorized
into four generations
• 1st generation Biodiesel:
produced from various foods stock sources such as edible plant oil and
animal fat.
2nd generation biodiesel:
is produced from non-edible feedstock, such as the nonedible oil, the
seed of Jatropha, food waste, animal fat waste, and agricultural waste.
3rd generation biodiesel
Biodiesel produced from microbes is categorized in third-generation
biofuels
Oleaginous microorganisms
 are the microbes that accumulate lipid that is more than 20% of their dry
weight.
 These microbes use various renewable materials and convert them into
microbial oil, which is utilized further to produce biodiesel through
transesterification
 The microbial oil is also termed as single-cell oil.
 The first single-cell oil was commercially produced way back in 1985 using
filamentous fungus Mucor circinelloides
Steps in Biodiesel production
Transesterification:

 three-step organic rection carried out in the presence of acid/base or enzymes (lipases).

 triglyceride is converted into diglycerides, followed by monoglycerides, in a sequential

order. These monoglycerides upon reaction with methanol result in the formation of

FAME (biodiesel) and crude glycerol.

 Fatty acid acid methyl ester (FAME)

Advantages of OM-based biodiesel:
 overcoming the food vs. fuel crisis.
 shorter incubation time compared to plant and animal resources.
 independence of lipid production from variation of season, climate, and geography.
 convert inexpensive agro-industrial wastes and even municipal wastes to microbial
oil.
 Inexpensive lignocellulosic wastes may serve as a potential source for microbial oil
production.
 OMs belong to different microbial families, namely, microalgae, yeast, filamentous
fungi or molds, and bacteria
Bacteria as source of Biodiesel production because of
 Bacteria are having the properties of high growth rate
 easiness of genetic manipulation, which can be positively exploited for high microbial oil
production.
 Generally, bacteria are not known for high lipid accumulation except some species, for
example, Rhodococcus, Streptomyces, and Mycobacterium .
 The actinomycetes are reported to have accumulation of fatty acid up to 70% of their cell dry
weight.
 Genetic engineering in bacteria resulted in many high-lipid yielding species.
 It was reported that genetic changes in Escherichia coli led to 2.5 g/L of fatty acid production.
 Furthermore, many bacteria can be grown using lignocellulosic-based substrate as a carbon and
Thanks