Studies on Microalgal Lipid Production and Elucidation of Stress Related Biochemical Changes.

In recent years microalgae have been recognized as potential industrial source of
lipids/oils for nutritional and bioenergy applications. Microalgae as a resource have
advantage due to their high photosynthetic efficiency, higher surface area productivity
than crop plants, wide environmental adaptability, simple nutritional requirements and
lipid accumulation property under stressful growth conditions. Further they do not
compete with food crops for land and can be grown using non-potable waters and
non-arable land. In addition, the microalgae biodiversity is enormous with ubiquitous
occurrence in variety of aquatic ecosystems. Despite these advantages, microalgae
based lipid production has not yet realized its commercial potential due to several
gaps in technology such as untapped biodiversity, low biomass productivities and
energy intensive downstream processing. Hence the present study focuses on
prospecting the biodiversity of microalgae from different water habitats,
understanding their stress adaptation and assessing their potential for the production
of lipids.
Prospe