The growing demand for biodegradable and biocompatible bioplastics has intensified interest in biopolymer-based materials such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) and polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). However, their large-scale production remains economically challenging due to the high cost of carbon substrates required for microbial fermentation. Microalgae offer a sustainable alternative owing to their ability to capture CO₂ and grow in diverse conditions, yet their intracellular PHA content is typically low, limiting industrial scalability. Utilizing microalgal biomass as a renewable carbon source for bacterial PHA production presents a promising pathway to reduce costs. Nonetheless, limited biorefinery integration, reliance on conventional upstream and downstream methods, and the scarcity of comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) studies hinder commercialization. This review provides a critical overview of current PHA production strategies using intracellular microalgae and its biomass, identifies key challenges and research gaps, and critically discusses available LCA and TEA studies related to other substrate-based systems. Furthermore, it proposes a conceptual yet promising framework integrating flue gas and wastewater utilization, genetic modulation, green solvent extraction, and circular bioeconomy principles to enhance economic and environmental sustainability. The insights presented herein aim to guide future research toward the scalable and eco-efficient production of PHA from microalgae.
Goswami et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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