An initiative has been taken to develop different solid, liquid, and gaseous biofuels as the alternative energy resources. The current research and technology based on the third generation biofuels derived from algal biomass have been considered as the best alternative bioresource that avoids the disadvantages of first and second generation biofuels. Algal biomass has been investigated for the implementation of economic conversion processes producing different biofuels such as biodiesel, bioethanol, biogas, biohydrogen, and other valuable co-products. In the present review, the recent findings and advance developments in algal biomass for improved biofuel production have been explored. This review discusses about the importance of the algal cell contents, various strategies for product formation through various conversion technologies, and its future scope as an energy security.

The progressive rise in energy crisis followed by green house gas (GHG) emissions is serving as the driving force for bioethanol production from renewable resources. Current bioethanol research focuses on lignocellulosic feedstocks as these are abundantly available, renewable, sustainable and exhibit no competition between the crops for food and fuel. However, the technologies in use have some drawbacks including incapability of pentose fermentation, reduced tolerance to products formed, costly processes, etc. Therefore, the present study was carried out with the objective of isolating hexose and pentose fermenting thermophilic/thermotolerant ethanologens with acceptable product yield. Two thermotolerant isolates, NIRE-K1 and NIRE-K3 were screened for fermenting both glucose and xylose and identified as Kluyveromyces marxianus NIRE-K1 and K. marxianus NIRE-K3. After optimization using Face-centered Central Composite Design (FCCD), the growth parameters like temperature and pH were found to be 45.17°C and 5.49, respectively for K. marxianus NIRE-K1 and 45.41°C and 5.24, respectively for K. marxianus NIRE-K3. Further, batch fermentations were carried out under optimized conditions, where K. marxianus NIRE-K3 was found to be superior over K. marxianus NIRE-K1. Ethanol yield (Yx∕s), sugar to ethanol conversion rate (%), microbial biomass concentration (X) and volumetric product productivity (Qp) obtained by K. marxianus NIRE-K3 were found to be 9.3, 9.55, 14.63, and 31.94% higher than that of K. marxianus NIRE-K1, respectively. This study revealed the promising potential of both the screened thermotolerant isolates for bioethanol production.

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The evolutionary adaptation was carried out on the thermotolerant yeast Kluyveromyces marxianus NIRE-K1 at 45 °C up to 60 batches to enhance its xylose utilization capability. The adapted strain showed higher specific growth rate and 3-fold xylose uptake rate and short lag phase as compared to the native strain. During aerobic growth adapted yeast showed 2.81-fold higher xylose utilization than that of native. In anaerobic batch fermentation, adapted yeast utilized about 91% of xylose in 72 h and produced 2.88 and 18.75 g l⁻¹ of ethanol and xylitol, respectively, which were 5.11 and 5.71-fold higher than that of native. Ethanol yield, xylitol yield and specific sugar consumption rate obtained by the adapted cells were found to be 1.57, 1.65 and 4.84-fold higher than that of native yeast, respectively. Aforesaid results suggested that the evolutionary adaptation will be a very effective strategy in the near future for economic lignocellulosic ethanol production.

The adverse climatic conditions due to continuous use of fossil-derived fuels are the driving factors for the development of renewable sources of energy. Current biofuel research focuses mainly on lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) such as agricultural, industrial and municipal solid wastes due to their abundance and renewability. Although many mesophilic cellulolytic microorganisms have been reported, efficient and economical bioconversion to simple sugars is still a challenge. Thermostable cellulolytic enzymes play an indispensible role in degradation of the complex polymeric structure of LCB into fermentable sugar stream due to their higher flexibility with respect to process configurations and better specific activity than the mesophilic enzymes. In some anaerobic thermophilic/thermotolerant microorganisms, few cellulases are organized as unique multifunctional enzyme complex, called the cellulosome. The use of cellulosomal multienzyme complexes for saccharification seems to be a promising and cost-effective alternative for complete breakdown of cellulosic biomass. This paper aims to explore and review the important findings in cellulosomics and forward the path for new cutting-edge opportunities in the success of biorefineries. Herein, we summarize the protein structure, regulatory mechanisms and their expression in the host cells. Furthermore, we discuss the recent advances in specific strategies used to design new multifunctional cellulosomal enzymes, which can function as lignocellulosic biocatalysts and evaluate the roadblocks in the yield and stability of such designer thermozymes with overall progress in lignocellulose-based biorefinery.

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Background Lignocellulosic biomass is an attractive, inexpensive source of potentially fermentable sugars. However, hydrolysis of lignocellulose results in a complex mixture containing microbial inhibitors at variable composition. A single microbial species is unable to detoxify or even tolerate these non-sugar components while converting the sugar mixtures effectively to a product of interest. Often multiple substrates are metabolized sequentially because of microbial regulatory mechanisms. To overcome these problems, we engineered strains of Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1 to comprise a consortium able to degrade benzoate and 4-hydroxybenzoate simultaneously under batch and continuous conditions in the presence of sugars. We furthermore used a thermotolerant yeast, Kluyveromyces marxianus , to convert the glucose remaining after detoxification to ethanol. Results The two engineered strains, one unable to metabolize benzoate and another unable to metabolize 4-hydroxybenzoate, when grown together removed these two inhibitors simultaneously under batch conditions. Under continuous conditions, a single strain with a deletion in the gcd gene metabolized both inhibitors in the presence of sugars. After this batch detoxification using ADP1-derived mutants, K. marxianus generated 36.6 g/L ethanol. Conclusions We demonstrated approaches for the simultaneous removal of two aromatic inhibitors from a simulated lignocellulosic hydrolysate. A two-stage batch process converted the residual sugar into a non-growth-associated product, ethanol. Such a two-stage process with bacteria ( A. baylyi) and yeast ( K. marxianus ) is advantageous, because the yeast fermentation occurs at a higher temperature which prevents growth and ethanol consumption of A. baylyi. Conceptually, the process can be extended to other inhibitors or sugars found in real hydrolysates. That is, additional strains which degrade components of lignocellulosic hydrolysates could be made substrate-selective and targeted for use with specific complex mixtures found in a hydrolysate. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-019-1434-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.