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Vegetable oils and animal fats are the most often used feedstock in biodiesel production; however, they are also used in food production, which results in increasing the feedstock price due to the competition. Therefore, alternative feedstock is required in biodiesel production. Heterotrophic microalgae are found capable of accumulating high lipid (up to 57% w/w). They can use complex carbons such as sweet sorghum and Jerusalem artichoke as nutrients to produce equivalent quantity oil as that of using glucose, which provides a cheap biodiesel production strategy. It was found that nanomaterials could stimulate microorganism metabolism, which suggested that nanomaterial addition in the cultivation could enhance lipid production of microalgae. Furthermore, the use of nanomaterials could improve the efficiency of the lipid extraction and even accomplish it without harming the microalgae. Nanomaterials such as CaO and MgO nanoparticles have been used as biocatalyst carriers or as heterogeneous catalyst in oil transesterification to biodiesel. In this paper, the factors that could impact on lipid accumulation of heterotrophic microalgae are critically reviewed; the advances on application of nanotechnology in microalgae lipid accumulation, extraction, and transesterification are addressed. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.