The use of fossil fuels is increasingly undesirable, as they are known as non-sustainable and long-term harmful to the environment due to depletion of reserves and their contribution to carbon dioxide emissions into the environment. The most similar potentially renewable and carbon-neutral alternative to petroleum fuels is biodiesel derived from microalgae, which meets the global needs of transport consumption. Microalgae are sunlight-driven cell factories that convert carbon dioxide to potential biofuels, foods, feeds and high-value bioactives. The idea of using microalgae as a source of fuel is not new, but it is now being taken much more seriously because of sustainability reasons.
The main goal of the diploma thesis was monitoring the consumption or conversion of lipids of microalgae over time under previously determined optimal conditions of the biodiesel production process. I stopped the reaction at different times and obtained time-dependent data. GC-MS analysis of the final liquid reaction product followed. I also analyzed the content of intermediates and reactants at different times. In the Matlab programming language, I then tried to make an adequate mathematical model based on the obtained experimental data using the implicit Runge-Kutta formula with the ODE 23 tb solver.
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