Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Pondicherry University, Puducherry 605014, India

Carbon sequestration is an emergent technique to combat the augmented concentration of carbon dioxide in the environment. Unlike the carbon emission reduction strategies, carbon sequestration exhibits prominent potential to alleviate the carbon dioxide levels or conceal carbon dioxide emission if the carbon dioxide is to be arrested from voluminous stationary sources and effective use of the captured carbon dioxide to generate chemical and energy. Lately, microalgae systems are employed in biological sequestration or mitigation of carbons. These systems depict a hopeful and workable substitution to presently employed carbon mitigation approaches. Generally, microalgae are composed of highly multifarious and fast-growing microorganism groups that are very much proficient in photoautotrophic, heterotrophic, and mixotrophic environments. Cultivation of these microalgae can be performed on non-fertile land with a unit carbon dioxide fixation capacity 10–50 times higher than terrestrial plants. Additionally, this microalgae biomass can also generate food, feed, fine chemicals, and biofuels which further shows the widespread advantages of microalgae-based carbon dioxide fixation. In this current review article, few important insights on how microalgae embody various forms of carbons and provide a precise summary of the present development in the proficient use of microalgae for carbon dioxide fixation, algal biorefinery concept, and extraction of various value-added products are discussed.