Cultivating microalgae has the potential to produce biofuels and bioproducts from solar energy with low land use and without competing with food crops. However, despite these key advantages, barriers remain to widespread, economical production from microalgae including: the relatively low solar energy conversion efficiency of photosynthesis, unknown optimal cultivation conditions, and the high energy and economic costs of cultivation and processing microalgal biomass. Thus, recent technological developments seek to address these barriers. To optimize cultivation conditions, devices taking advantage of advanced fluid and light handling techniques are being developed. These approaches drastically increase experimental throughput to find the ideal cultivation parameters. To apply optimal conditions, a range of cultivation approaches are being developed to deliver light and nutrients to microalgae to achieve high productivities. Finally, to extract maximal value out of microalgal biomass, downstream processing technology, such as hydrothermal liquefaction, is replacing costly conventional processes to produce fuels and high-value products from microalgae. Taken together, these technologies can allow microalgae to become competitive in the sustainable energy landscape – particularly to produce complex, high-value molecules.

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新兴的微藻技术：评论

种植微藻具有潜力，可以利用太阳能来生产生物燃料和生物产品，土地使用率低，而且不会与粮食作物竞争。然而，尽管具有这些关键优势，但微藻广泛，经济地生产仍然存在障碍，包括：光合作用的太阳能转化效率较低，最佳栽培条件未知，以及栽培和加工微藻生物质的高能源和经济成本。因此，近来的技术发展试图解决这些障碍。为了优化培养条件，正在开发利用先进的流体和光处理技术的设备。这些方法极大地提高了实验产量，以找到理想的培养参数。要应用最佳条件，正在开发各种栽培方法，以向微藻提供光和养分，以实现高生产力。最后，为了从微藻生物质中提取最大价值，下游加工技术（例如水热液化）正在取代昂贵的常规工艺，以从微藻生产燃料和高价值产品。综合起来，这些技术可以使微藻类在可持续能源格局中变得更具竞争力，尤其是生产复杂的高价值分子。