Fresh water green microalga Scenedesmus abundans: A potential feedstock for high quality biodiesel production S.K. Mandotra a,b,1 , Pankaj Kumar a,2 , M.R. Suseela a,⇑ , P.W. Ramteke b,3 a Algology Laboratory, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh 226 001, India b Department of Biological Sciences, Sam Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh 211 007, India highlights  S. abundans accumulates high biomass and lipid content with Modified CHU-13 medium.  Folch extraction method extracts higher amount of lipids from alga.  Two step transesterification results in higher biodiesel production.  Biodiesel produced from S. abundans meets international biodiesel standards. article info Article history: Received 13 September 2013 Received in revised form 28 December 2013 Accepted 31 December 2013 Available online 10 January 2014 Keywords: Scenedesmus abundans Biomass Biodiesel Transesterification Photobioreactor abstract Present investigation studied the potential of fresh water green microalga Scenedesmus abundans as a feedstock for biodiesel production. To study the biomass and lipid yield, the culture was grown in BBM, Modified CHU-13 and BG-11 medium. Among the tested nitrogen concentration using Modified CHU-13 medium, the highest biomass and lipid yield of 1.113 ± 0.05 g/L and 489 ± 23 mg/L respectively was found in the culture medium with 0.32 g/L of nitrogen (KNO 3 ). Different lipid extraction as well as transesterification methods were also tested. Fatty acid profile of alga grown in large scale indigenous made photobioreactor has shown abundance of fatty acids with carbon chain length of C16 and C18. Var- ious biodiesel properties such as cetane number, iodine value and saponification value were found to be in accordance with Brazilian National Petroleum Agency (ANP255) and European biodiesel standard EN14214 which makes S. abundans as a potential feedstock for biodiesel production. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The increase in global energy demand due to large scale indus- trialization and transportation has led the overdependence of human being for petroleum based fossil fuel. However, the non renewable nature of fossil fuels has raised numerous problems like; increase in crude oil prices and global warming due to the burning of fossil fuels (Malcata, 2011). Beside this, as the fossil fuel reserves are limited, they are going to exhaust in the near future, therefore, much of the interest has been focused on renewable and eco-friendly sources of energy (Chisti, 2007a). Biodiesel has gained huge popularity in the recent years, and it is assumed that, due to its eco-friendly and renewable nature, it can replace the need of fossil fuels. Biodiesel is a mixture of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) which can be obtained from vegetable oil, animal fat sources, waste cooking oil and algae (Chisti, 2007b; Ranganathan et al., 2007). The use of agriculture oil crops such as soybean and palm oil for biodiesel production is being done in various countries, but the oil production form these crops is very less which can only be used for blending with petroleum based fuels in a very small quantities, besides this, the use of these crops for biofuel production adversely affect the agricultural products yield (Chisti, 2007a). Algae have been widely recognised as a promising feedstock for biofuel production. Unlike other agriculture oil crops, algae can grow anywhere in ponds, photobioreactors and waste water of wide range of pH and chemical composition. It has been reported that some microalgae can produce as much as 80% oil of their dry cell weight, their year-round production and very high growth rates make them superior source for biodiesel production, (Chisti, 2007b; Liu et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2009). There are four major steps involved in the biofuel production from microalgae: growth, harvest, extraction and conversion of 0960-8524/$ - see front matter Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2013.12.127 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9453848925. E-mail addresses: skmandotra@gmail.com (S.K. Mandotra), pankajverma086@ gmail.com (P. Kumar), mr.suseela@gmail.com (M.R. Suseela), pwramteke@gmail. com (P.W. Ramteke). 1 Tel.: +91 9026643911. 2 Tel.: +91 9369589062. 3 Tel.: +91 9415124985. Bioresource Technology 156 (2014) 42–47 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Bioresource Technology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech