238 - Biodiesel Production from Algal Lipids

To many, algae are the pesky product of eutrophication in local lakes and ponds. In the laboratory, algae is a promising competitor for renewable resources of biodiesel. Algae not only ingests excess carbon emissions from the atmosphere, but, they also convert it into energy dense lipids, which can be harvested, and then transformed into biodiesel through process of transesterification. Despite the advantages, the amount of biodiesel produced is not significant enough to be considered a worthwhile option. Before the fuel industry can accept algae farming as a worthy alternative to fossil fuels, the reason for harvesting must be maximized further. The overarching goal of this project is to make algal lipid extraction more efficient through means of culturing the algae species Chlorella Vulgaris and evaluating biodiesel produced via H-NMR, C-NMR, and IR was completed. In order to test the product made we created a standard of which we compared our results to, using canola oil as the lipids for transesterification.