Science and Technology Indicators of Microalgae-Based Biofuel Research
Résumé
Microalgae are considered one of the most promising sources for biofuels (Wijffels & Barbosa, 2010). However, this alternative to fossil fuel must overcomes technological and economical barriers. To gain insights into the evolution of research on biofuel production from biomass, scientometrics characterization of biomass (Chen & Ho, 2015), waste recycling research (Garechana et al., 2015) as well algae and biodiesel patenting trends (Preiss & Kowalski, 2010) have been reported. These studies have highlighted the exponential growth of bioenergy research and the dominant position of the USA in this area. However, in many countries the invention of biofuel technologies slowed down by year 2008 (Albers et al., 2016). A first attempt to link the evolution of biofuel science with R-D expenditure has been published (Azadi et al, 2017) but, none of these previous studies embraced at the same time science, technology and economic indicators to describe the evolution of biofuel innovation.
The purpose of this work is to describe biofuel research and technology trends focusing on microalgae-based biosource through a multidimensional analysis to reveal influential factors (scientific, technologic, economic or environmental).