Toward Cheaper Microbial Oil for Biodiesel Oil
加快微生物油脂研究为生物柴油产业提供廉价原料

Biodiesel, chemically defined as a mixture of long chain fatty acid esters, is generally believed as an ideal replacement of diesel.It is generally prepared by trans-esterification of plant oil with methanol. However,biodiesel is currently more expensive than conventional diesel due to high cost share of 70 % - 85 % for raw material. One option could be the exploitation of carbohydrate-based microbial oil, as it consists of similar fatty acids to that of plant oil. There are diverse oleaginous microorganisms capable of accumulating lipids and metabolizing different carbohydrates, which originate from renewable lignocellulosic biomass. Up to date, high cost is still the major barrier to large-scale production of microbial oil, so research is focused on those with high poly-unsaturated fatty acids content. Modern biochemical engineering technology and molecular biology tools will greatly enhance our ability to manipulate oleaginous microorganisms. Therefore, cost-effective microbial oil will hopefully be available for biodiesel production in the near future.