Microalgae is being investigated as a renewable transportation fuel feedstock based on various advantages that include high annual yields, utilization of poor quality land, does not compete with food, and can be integrated with various waste streams. This study focuses on directly assessing the environmental impact of two different thermochemical conversion technologies for the microalgae-to-biofuel process through life cycle assessment. A system boundary of "well to pump" (WTP) is defined and includes sub-process models of the growth, dewatering, thermochemical bio-oil recovery, bio-oil stabilization, conversion to renewable diesel, and transport to the pump. Models were validated with experimental and literature data and are representative of an industrial-scale microalgae-to-biofuel process. Two different thermochemical bio-oil conversion systems are modeled and compared on a systems level, hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) and pyrolysis. The environmental impact of the two pathways were quantified on the metrics of net energy ratio (NER), defined here as energy consumed over energy produced, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Results for WTP biofuel production through the HTL pathway were determined to be 1.23 for the NER and GHG emissions of-11.4 g CO 2-eq (MJ renewable diesel)-1. WTP biofuel production through the pyrolysis pathway results in a NER of 2.27 and GHG emissions of 210 g CO 2-eq (MJ renewable diesel)-1. The large environmental impact associated with the pyrolysis pathway is attributed to feedstock drying requirements and combustion of co-products to improve system energetics. Discussion focuses on a detailed breakdown of the overall process energetics and GHGs, impact of modeling at laboratory-scale compared to industrial-scale, environmental impact sensitivity to systems engineering input parameters for future focused research and development, and a comparison of results to literature.

Revolutionary shale gas production has resulted in increasing interest in the use of methane for producing various types of high-value chemicals and among them is aromatics via methane dehydroaromatization (MDA). Progresses achieved in the area of MDA during the last 6 years are significant. However, a review in this area is lacking. This review is designed to fill the gap. The review not only discusses he development of MDA catalysts, including conventional molybdenum (Mo)-based catalyst and non-Mo-based catalysts and novel catalysts. Also, the insights for the associated reaction mechanisms and catalyst regeneration methods and applications of various types of reactors are provided.

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