The global energy crisis and environmental concerns necessitate an urgent transition to sustainable fuels. Biodiesel, a possible renewable alternative, is constrained by conventional feedstocks having issues such as food-versus-fuel competition and land use. This review positions oleaginous fungi on a superior and sustainable alternative for use as a feedstock in the production of biodiesel. Fungi possess immense advantages, including the capability to yield high lipid quantities (often in amounts greater than 50% dry biomass), rapid generation times, and the ability to cultivate on nutrient-rich, low-cost waste residues like agricultural waste and industrial wastewater. This therefore facilitate a circular bioeconomy. This review narrates in chronological order the entire range of fungi-to-fuel pipeline, involving advanced oleaginous strain isolation and high-throughput screening procedures. It also compares mass cultivation methods, specifically submerged and solid-state fermentation, and evaluates lipid extraction processes, ranging from classical solvent extraction to new green strategies like supercritical CO₂ and enzyme-assisted extraction. Fungal lipid conversion to biodiesel via transesterification is investigated, with the focus of how the type of catalyst impacts yield and quality. The biodiesel recovered is rich in fatty acid profiles, having high C16 and C18 chains, and respective high fuel properties such as good viscosity and high cetane number to international standards. Overcoming scale-up issues, process improvement, and economic viability remains to be addressed, but advances in genetic engineering, bioreactor design, and integrated biorefinery concepts are expected to propel industrially relevant advancement. Oleaginous fungi are thus a flexible and sustainable alternative for the production of high-quality biodiesel with significant potential to underpin energy security and global decarbonization.
David K. Kowanga (Wed,) studied this question.