Façade integrated photobioreactors for building energy efficiency

With a special emphasis on the urbanization, societies need to focus on sustainability and environment-friendly solutions to solve the crucial problems like the rapid increase in population, growing risks of pollution, and unbalanced economy without sacrificing their life quality. This is not easy, but the progress in technology catalyzed different approaches to overcome these problems. The key issue in these approaches is directly related to the energy interaction in both micro- and macroscale; in other words, considering the city and building as a whole. As a matter of fact, new legislation and standards for construction and planning are aiming to fulfill this interaction in an upper level of efficiency. Companies presenting different materials, construction offices focusing on novel designs, or policy-makers leading different discussions all act as the building blocks to reach a better future. At this point renewable solutions like using microalgae can play a vital role as a design element in buildings. Microalgae as a topic is not new for biotechnology applications but nowadays with an aesthetic and sustainable understanding, microalgae has been the popular issue for design of sustainable ecology, environment, well-being, lifestyles, and architecture. In this context the aim of this chapter is to highlight the possible role of microalgae in a building with a special emphasis on energy efficiency and sustainability without underestimating the importance for a start-up creation of a sustainable and ecoefficient built environment considering new companies that can be interested in the area. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved