Major industrial players are ENN Co., which operates a microalgae demonstration plant in Inner Mongolia, and SINOPEC. In the public domain, expertise is at Jinan University, Aquatic Biology Research Center (Prof. ZHANG Chengwu) and at CAS QIBEBT in Qingdao (Prof. LIU Tianzhong). At present, microalgae production is low (1.000 to 1.500 t of Chlorella, 4.500 t of Spirulina), and technology is developed both in open pond and in photobioreactor systems. The main drawback is cost and the difficulty to select the “best” strain for breeding

China Bioindustry Network, Oct. 31, 2012