ABSTRACT
The investigation of a new energy source was strongly demanded during the oil crisis in the 1970s. The utilization of microalgae in biofuel production has caught much attention due to the high constituent of lipids content which can be used as feedstock to achieve high biofuel production rate. Algae drying is a complicated transient operation of simultaneous heat and mass transfer with various rate processes. Liquid from wet material is evaporated with the heat supply during the drying process. Algae surface charge, size, and cell density are associated with the stability of microalgae in growth medium, which influences their separability from aqueous suspensions. The electric interactions between algae cells and cell interactions with the surrounding culture broth could contribute to the stability of the algae suspension. Destabilisation of colloidal suspension like in an algae culture is attainable by the presence of organic polymer by specific interactions at the ionic or atomic levels.
