Fossil fuels have become a huge part of our life
and it has become one of the essential commodities which
has become a necessity to most of the day to day activities.
As a sustainable alternative microalgae based biofuels
have shown a promising approach towards replacing
fossil fuels usage. Lipid accumulating microalgae is
mainly used for biodiesel production. Several microalgae
are capable of producing high quality as well as high
quantity of lipids which is suitable for biodiesel
production. Hence high lipid content and rapid cell
growth is critical for commercial and scale up production.
Scenedesmus sp. is one of the microalgae species which
has low lipid content but high growth rate. Increasing the
lipid content in Scenedesmus species is a challenging
process and extensive research is taking place in this area
to increase the lipid content in them. Upstream and
downstream stages of the microalgae based biofuel
production process have been widely explored to increase
lipid as well as biomass productivity in the microalgae.
This review is mainly focused on the four of the uplifting
technologies which have been used to improve the lipid
content especially in Scenedesmus species.
Index terms -- Biodiesel, biofuel, biomass, fossil fuel, lipid,
microalgae and Scenedesmus sp