One of the cost of production problems that holds algae back as a major biomatter resource is an efficient cost-effective method of harvesting and removing the water from the algae for it to be processed.

Algae have the potential to be a very efficient biofuel producer.  The one cell plant produces oil that can be processed to create a useful biofuel.  Biofuels made from plant material are considered important alternatives to fossil fuels.  The carbohydrate portion can be used food or to make more fuel.

The SU team’s new technique builds on previous research in which microbubbles were used to improve the way algae is cultivated.  The early work used the microbubble technology to improve algae production methods, allowing producers to grow crops more rapidly and more densely and earned Zimmerman and the team the Moulton Medal, from the Institute of Chemical Engineers.  The research paper is published in Biotechnology and Bioengineering.

Professor Zimmerman outlines the story saying, “We thought we had solved the major barrier to biofuel companies processing algae to use as fuel when we used microbubbles to grow the algae more densely. It turned out, however, that algae biofuels still couldn’t be produced economically, because of the difficulty in harvesting and dewatering the algae. We had to develop a solution to this problem and once again, microbubbles provided a solution.”

Microbubble Algae Separation at the University of Sheffield. Click image for the largest view.

Microbubbles have been used for flotation before: water purification companies use the process to float out impurities, but it hasn’t been done in this context, partly because the previous methods have been very expensive.

The new system developed by Zimmerman´s team uses as little as one tenth of a percent of the energy to produce the microbubbles.  Additionally, the cost of installing the Sheffield microbubble system is predicted to be much less than existing flotation systems.

Zimmerman explains the technology saying, “What we’ve found is that we can separate the microalgae from the water or harvest it using microbubbles that are created by a fluidic oscillator. A fluidic oscillator switches flows rapidly from one outlet to another, using feedback to do so with no moving parts. It is like an opening and closing mechanical valve that results in pulsing flow. Our bubbles are made under laminar flow and we use practically no more energy than is required to make the interface of the bubble.”

As a result of the low energy input, the bubbles rise very slowly, which is crucial as it means the algae particles can attach themselves to the bubbles more easily. Two chemicals added to the liquid in the process, a flocculant and a coagulant to help the algae bond to the rising microbubbles.

“The idea is to create a surface on the algae particles that is hydrophobic so the microbubbles are attracted to it,” said Zimmerman. When the bubbles and the particles reach the surface, the flocculant and the coaggulant keep the algae in a fixed layer. The blanket of algae can then be skimmed off the surface with something such as a belt skimmer. “In the lab, we use a knife.”

Zimmerman explained that the process is much cheaper than attempting to make microbubbles through an industrial process known as dissolved air flotation, which generates bubbles that are too turbulent to harvest algae.

Next up for the technology is to develop a pilot plant to test the system at an industrial scale.  Professor Zimmerman is already working with Tata Steel at their site in Scunthorpe, where Tata Steel is recovering and using CO2 from their flue-gas stacks.  Zimmerman and Tata plan to continue the partnership to test the new system.

The SU team’s technology may have other soon to be used attributes.  Lakes that have a build-up of nutrients causing algal blooms to form called eutrophication, often attributed to agricultural fertilizers entering water bodies, need the algae harvested and removed instead of left to die and decompose.

The SU team is already in talks with Ken Shu, a scientific adviser to the Chinese government, to set up pilot-scale trials on remediating algal blooms in eutrophied lakes in China.

Zimmerman explains, “China has demographic drinking-water problems. They’re running out because the lakes that used to be used for drinking water are all eutrophied with algal blooms.”

It looks good in the lab.  A lot of ideas have came and went in trying to capture the algae cells in a low cost harvest.  Algae, naturally, are pretty good at keeping themselves separate with each basking in the sunlight. It’s a significant attribute that makes the very high productivity possible as well as makes the harvest problematic.

Lets hope the Brits have it nailed down now.

A metabolic network reconstruction encompasses existing knowledge about an organism’s metabolism and the genome.

Metabolic Reconstruction of Algae Chart. Click image for more info.

The research offers some concrete results.  By integrating biological and optical data, the team reconstructed a genome-scale metabolic ‘network’ for the alga and devised a novel light-modeling approach that enabled quantitative growth prediction for a given light source, revealing the best wavelength and photon flux.  The team experimentally checked basic information assumptions in the network and physiologically validated model function through simulation and generation of new experimental growth data.

The experimental checks provide high confidence in ‘network’ contents and predictive applications. The network offers insight into algal metabolism and potential for genetic engineering and efficient light source design, a pioneering resource for studying light-driven metabolism and quantitative systems biology.

The paper has been published in Molecular Systems Biology and as of this writing is available in full at the link provided here.

Commercial scale production and further basic scientific research of light energized bio growth should benefit from better understanding of how light is absorbed and how it affects cell’s photosynthesis. The quality of light sources arriving to the organisms in commercial production photobioreactors largely determines the efficiency of energy usage in industrial algal farming. Light spectral quality also affects how photon absorption induces various metabolic processes: photosynthesis, pigment and vitamin synthesis, and the retinol pathway required for phototaxis.

Light Spectrum Effects on Algae. Click image for more info.

Using a metabolic network reconstruction can provide a framework to integrate a wide range of input data for investigation of most of the properties of metabolism.  This ability can provide clear advantages in ways to study the effects of light upon a photosynthetic biological system when light input is accounted for by itself.

This first research experimental check revealed hypothetical latent pathways of lipid metabolism, the functions of which have likely been lost through evolution.  The first experiments also found the suggestion that C. reinhardtii also lacks very long-chain fatty acids (VLCFAs), their polyunsaturated analogs (VLCPUFAs) and ceramides.  While these haven’t been detected in C. reinhardtii, the absence is now confirmed by another route.

The paper goes into considerable detail outlining the experiment and the evidence obtained on the metabolism of C. reinhardtii.  What the research offers is an insight on the means by which C. reinhardtiiis operates metabolically, both from its evolutionary past and into the potential engineered future.

The most impressive work is learning what are the effective light spectral ranges by analyzing biochemical activity spectra, either reaction activity or absorbance at varying light wavelengths. Defining effective spectral bandwidths associated with each photon-utilizing reaction enabled the network to model growth under different light sources.  Now the possibility exists to distinguish the amount of emitted photons that drive different metabolic reactions.  This can open the door to optimally using solar light, various light bulbs, and LEDs.

The research is quite broad and inclusive, including the thermal aspect and sets an impressive standard for further research into the models of particular organisms.  Where the shine comes is the breadth and depth of the experiments allow for a future platform for prediction of phenotypic outcomes of system perturbations, light source evaluation and design, and genetic engineering design for production of biofuels and other commodity chemicals.

With a base set now, which will surely find further research and more insight for C. reinhardtiiis, this alga has a early start in the genetic engineering arena.  The complete genome sequence data for C. reinhardtii and its functional annotation have enabled the research team’s effort to build a more full understanding of the presence of genome-encoded enzymes.  The team has put together and experimentally validated a genome-scale metabolic network, the first research to account for detailed photon absorption permitting growth simulations under different light sources. This surprise is the new research shows the activity of substantially more genes with metabolic functions than previous research.

This is just the first run as well. Exciting as it is, this research is on a single cell organism.  Where this caliber of research might lead on the more complex plants, of particular interest food and other fuel plants producing fruit, seeds and other products, is a whole new frontier.

Linde Group Gas Facility. Click image for the largest view.

Linde has announced a partnership with Sapphire Energy in an agreement to collaborate on a commercial-scale system that could deliver CO2 to open-pond algae systems like those currently being used by Sapphire.

The goal of the project is cut the costs of delivering anthropogenic (power plant emitted) CO2 to Sapphire’s open ponds. While waiting for the multiyear agreement to develop a commercial-scale system, Linde will provide CO2 at Sapphire’s Columbus, N.M., demonstration facility.

Sapphire Las Cruces NM Facility. Click image for the largest view.

Linde already has substantial experience.  In the Netherlands, Linde has created a CO2 delivery system that supplies 550 greenhouses with CO2 through a 100-kilometer (62 mile) pipeline from a nearby refinery. Aldo Belloni, a member of the executive board of Linde AG said, “Producing fuel by algae using CO2 from large emitters like power stations and chemical plants is a very promising way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Linde’s projections suggest a single commercial algae-fuel facility will require roughly 10,000 metric tons of CO2 per day. With the need for fuel dependency becoming clearer, according to Cynthia Warner, president of Sapphire Energy, “we need great partners who can supply sufficient and low-cost access to CO2.”

Linde, Warner believes, has a great understanding of efficiently managing the distribution process of CO2, adding that with this collaboration, Sapphire is moving “closer to delivering a domestically produced, cost-efficient source of algae-based green crude.”

The partnership between Sapphire Energy with a billion dollar company isn’t the first major coup for the algae developer. In March, Sapphire also partnered with Monsanto to develop algal genes that might apply to Monsanto’s work in agriculture.

The attraction for Linde would be Sapphire Energy has developed technology to produce a renewable and low-carbon substitute for fossil-based crude oil. Sapphire’s green crude produces drop-in fuels — jet, diesel, and gasoline — that are said to be compatible with existing infrastructure and engines.

Sapphire’s algae are grown in salty, non-potable water, using lands not suitable for agriculture, and require only sunlight and CO2 to grow — all sustainable features that petroleum and most other biofuel options cannot match, says the company. The technology represents an approximate 70% reduction in lifecycle carbon emissions compared to petroleum-based equivalents.

This news is plainly significant as Linde is a very large industrial gas supplier with extensive financial resources, engineering expertise and experience in customer support. This puts comparably tiny Sapphire in a leading role.  It also suggests an endorsement of sorts that Sapphire’s algae technology has real legs for getting to market for a profit.

With an armada of small firms looking for an algae solution, Linde could fairly be expected to have checked into the technology very deeply before signing on to a multi year, capital intensive, and engineering demanding role.

That says a lot about algae’s progress – the idea that algae companies are still very far away from commercial operation at scale is falling behind now.

The algae business hasn’t make much breakthrough news of late.  This news though is better than news from research; it’s an investment out of the lab on the ground, going to production and consumer sales. Seeing a Linde caliber company leading is very encouraging and assures that other algae firms will have opportunities as well.

What isn’t revealed are the parameters Linde used to support its decision to proceed.  Those data points would be of intense interest for an entire industry.  For certain, the plan is for Linde to earn on its investment supplying the CO2 to Sapphire.  That implies that Sapphire has the customers lined up to take the products.

The Linde and Sapphire agreement is a milestone event.  Lets hope it’s just the first one of many more to come soon.

High oil prices, environmental and economic security concerns motivate a powerful interest in using algae-derived oils as an alternative to fossil fuels. Keep in mind that growing algae can require a lot of water at least to start, and that relatively level land will be helpful.

So being smart about the basic conditions is a good first indicator about the real estate maxim, location, location, location.  The new PNNL study shows that being smart about where we grow algae can drastically reduce how much water is needed for algal biofuel production.  PNNL is suggesting growing algae for biofuel, while being water-wise, could replace 17 percent of the nation’s imported oil for transportation.  Lets see how they’re getting there.

The PNNL study published at the journal Water Resources Research found that water use is much less if algae are grown in the U.S. regions that have the sunniest and most humid climates: the Gulf Coast, the Southeastern Seaboard and the Great Lakes.  Oh ho!  Where did Arizona and New Mexico go?  Out the too low humidity window, that’s where.

Mark Wigmosta, lead author and a PNNL hydrologist said, “Algae has been a hot topic of biofuel discussions recently, but no one has taken such a detailed look at how much America could make – and how much water and land it would require – until now. This research provides the groundwork and initial estimates needed to better inform renewable energy decisions.”  Water, especially if allowed to evaporate away, is going to be major input.

This matters, any biofuel could be made here in the United States. In 2009, slightly more than half of the petroleum consumed by the U.S. was from foreign oil.

The point behind the study is to provide the first in-depth assessment of America’s algal biofuel potential given available land and water. The study also estimated how much water would need to be replaced due to evaporation over 30 years. The team analyzed previously published data to determine how much algae can be grown in open, outdoor ponds of fresh water while using current technologies.

Algae can also be grown in salt water and covered ponds. But the authors focused on open, freshwater ponds as a benchmark for this study. Much of today’s commercial algae production is done in open ponds. This is how it is today, thus the obvious projection is rooted in what is already working.

To get the numbers the team used resources new to this writer.  The scientists developed a comprehensive national geographic information system database that evaluated topography, population, land use and other information about the contiguous United States. That database contained information spaced every 100 feet throughout the U.S., which is a much more detailed view than previous research.

This data allowed them to identify available areas that are better suited for algae growth, such as those with flat land that isn’t used for farming and isn’t near cities or environmentally sensitive areas like wetlands or national parks.  It’s looking like a real world assessment.

Next, the researchers gathered 30 years of meteorological information. That helped them determine the amount of sunlight that algae could realistically photosynthesize and how warm the ponds would become. Combined with a mathematical model on how much typical algae could grow under those specific conditions, the weather data allowed Wigmosta and the team to calculate the amount of algae that could realistically be produced hourly at each specific site.

The researchers found that 21 billion gallons of algal oil, equal to the 2022 advanced biofuels goal set out by the Energy Independence and Security Act, can be produced with American-grown algae. That’s 17 percent of the petroleum that the U.S. imported in 2008 for transportation fuels, and it could be grown on land roughly the size of South Carolina.  (It’s also quite convenient politically.)

But the authors also found that 350 gallons of water per gallon of oil – or a quarter of what the country currently uses for irrigated agriculture – would be needed to produce that much algal biofuel.  One might note that irrigated includes things like broccoli, peas, tomatoes, and other table vegetables as well as a small portion of the corn used for ethanol.

The authors also found that algae’s water use isn’t that different from most other biofuel sources. While considering the gasoline efficiency of a standard light-utility vehicle, they estimated growing algae uses anywhere between 8.6 and 50.2 gallons of water per mile driven on algal biofuel. In comparison, data from previously published research indicated that corn ethanol can be made with less water, but showed a larger usage range: between 0.6 and 61.9 gallons of water per mile driven. Several factors – including the differing water needs of specific growing regions and the different assumptions and methods used by various researchers cause the estimates to be across a wide range.

After the freshwater matter is considered the authors noted algae has several advantages over other biofuel sources. For example, algae can produce more than 80 times more oil than corn per hectare a year. And unlike corn and soybeans, algae aren’t a widespread food source that many people (Currently, there’s a lot of protein and other micronutrients involved.) depend on for nutrition. As carbon dioxide-consuming organisms, algae are considered a carbon-neutral energy source. Algae can feed off carbon emissions from power plants, delaying the emissions’ entry into the atmosphere. Algae also digest nitrogen and phosphorous, which are common water pollutants. That means algae can also grow in and clean municipal wastewater.

Wigmosta sums up saying, “Water is an important consideration when choosing a biofuel source, and so are many other factors. Algae could be part of the solution to the nation’s energy puzzle – if we’re smart about where we place growth ponds and the technical challenges to achieving commercial-scale algal biofuel production are met.”

On the other hand, algae isn’t economically viable at scale now.  The technology assumptions while realistic aren’t practical, yet.  A great deal of time was used and money spent meeting the political aspirations.  Not that any of this is bad, it’s more or less pointless.  The market will decide based on prices and algae in the first product renditions will have to face fossil based petroleum head on.  That’s the benchmark that matters.

Another point is technology for algae production isn’t going to stand still.  No can one reliably predict open evaporative ponds are going to dominate.  Actually, it more likely the control advantages from enclosed ponds will dominate purely from obvious risks from infestation, dust infill, water loss, and weather disturbance.  A lot of money will go in and not protecting it seems shortsighted, its not something likely overlooked when millions or tens of millions of dollars are sinking into the ground.

There is also the matter of condensed CO2 availability.  As events transpire, and the experience of the past few years show, getting a CO2 supply might become far more difficult than assumed.  Algae strains with great CO2 absorption without enriched supply aren’t being talked up, but many researchers have to realize the condensed CO2 supply is going to shrink.  That fact will delay mass algae development as well introducing more lag time.

Algae is a fascinating resource.  But the maze of paths intersecting the problems and opportunities seems to be ever expanding.  But opportunity at scale and oil way over a sensible $70 – the motivation is powerful indeed.

First and simplest, and likely most easily adoptable is from a team of chemical engineers at the University of Arkansas led by Jamie Hestekin, assistant professor and leader of the project.

Fiber Membranes and Raceway for Algae Production. Click image for the largest view. Image Credit: University of Arkansas.

Hestekin and his research team of undergraduates from the Honors College and several graduate students, including a doctoral student who has discovered a more efficient and technologically superior fermentation method, grow algae on “raceways,” which are long troughs – usually 2 feet wide and ranging from 5-feet to 80-feet long, depending on the scale of the operation. The troughs are made with screens or carpet, although Hestekin said algae would grow on almost any surface.

The clever innovation is the raceways are fed runoff or wastewater rich in nitrogen and phosphorous the algae need to prosper.  They enhance this growth by delivering high concentrations of carbon dioxide through hollow fiber membranes that look like long strands of spaghetti.  With natural sunlight the algae in the nutrient rich water produce well.  It also recovers the lost phosphorus and nitrogen cleaning up the water used and getting a second use from the nutrients.

Algae are harvested every five to eight days by vacuuming or scraping it off the screens. After drying, the algae are crushed and ground into a fine powder as the means to extract the sugar and starch carbohydrates from the plant cells. For this project, Hestekin’s team works with starches. The first stage is to treat the carbohydrates with acid and then heat them to break apart the starches and convert them into simple, natural sugars. They then begin a unique fermentation process in which organisms turn the sugars into organic acids – butyric, lactic and acetic.

The Arkansas team’s second stage of the fermentation process focuses on butyric acid and its conversion into butanol. The researchers use a unique process called electrodeionization, a technique developed by one of Hestekin’s doctoral students. This technique involves the use of a special membrane that rapidly and efficiently separates the acids during the application of electrical charges. By quickly isolating butyric acid, the process increases productivity, which makes the conversion process easier and less expensive.

The team is currently working with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to create biofuel from algae grown at the Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plant in Queens.

The Arkansas team’s research articles detailing findings from algae-to-fuel project have been submitted to Biotechnology and Bioengineering and Separation Science and Technology.  This team is making algae much more practical.

At the University of California, Berkeley, a team led by Michelle C. Y. Chang, assistant professor of chemistry, has constructed a chimeric pathway assembled from three different organisms for the high-level production of normal butanol in E. coli bacteria. The pathway uses an enzymatic chemical reaction mechanism in place of a physical step as a kinetic control element to achieve high yields from the sugar glucose.  It’s a straight to fuel product process from sugar.

Various species of the Clostridium bacteria naturally produce a chemical called n-butanol (normal butanol), which is often proposed as a substitute for diesel oil and gasoline.  So far most researchers, including a few biofuel companies, have genetically altered Clostridium to boost its ability to produce n-butanol, others have plucked enzymes from the bacteria and inserted them into other microbes, such as yeast, to turn them into n-butanol factories because yeast and E. coli are considered to be easier to grow on an industrial scale.

The problem?  The n-butanol production has been limited to little more than half a gram per liter, far below the amounts needed for affordable production and the process leaves most of the precious raw material – sugar, behind.  Other researchers who have engineered yeast or E. coli to produce n-butanol have taken the entire enzyme pathway and transplanted it into these microbes. But n-butanol is not produced rapidly in these systems because the native enzymes also can work in reverse to convert butanol back into its starting precursors.  Wouldn’t that drive a researcher a bit crazy?

N-Butanol Synthetic Pathway. Click image for more info.

Chang and her colleagues innovation is they’ve stuck the same enzyme pathway into E. coli, but replaced two of the five enzymes with look-alikes from other organisms that avoided the problems other researchers have had: n-butanol being converted back into its chemical precursors by the same enzymes that produce it.

The team’s new genetically altered nearly non reversing E. coli produced nearly five grams of n-butanol per liter, about the same as the native Clostridium and one-third the production of the best genetically altered Clostridium, but about 10 times better than current industrial microbe systems.

Chang is understandably a bit excited saying, “We are in a host that is easier to work with, and we have a chance to make it even better. We are reaching yields where, if we could make two to three times more, we could probably start to think about designing an industrial process around it. We were excited to break through the multi-gram barrier, which was challenging,”

The Berkley work isn’t so simple as it sounds. Chang found the two new enzyme versions in published sequences of microbial genomes, and based on her understanding of the enzyme pathway, substituted the new versions at critical points that would not interfere with the hundreds of other chemical reactions going on in a living E. coli cell. In all, she installed genes from three separate organisms – Clostridium acetobutylicum, Treponema denticola and Ralstonia eutrophus — into the E. coli.

Chang is optimistic that by improving enzyme activity at a few other bottlenecks in the n-butanol synthesis pathway, and by optimizing the host microbe for production of n-butanol, she can boost production two to three times more, that might justify considering scaling up to an industrial process. She also is at work adapting the new synthetic pathway to work in yeast, a workhorse for industrial production of many chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

The team, with members graduate student Brooks B. Bond-Watts and recent UC Berkeley graduate Robert J. Bellerose paper went online this week in advance of publication in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

These two paths, using the starch and the sugar components of algae offer great promise.  Taken together butanol would be coming from a large share of the carbohydrates.  What proportion or percentage isn’t stated, but for economic reasons these or other ideas are going to have to realistic on the carbon cycle from the CO2 to a fuel – leaving behind raw carbon compounds will be a huge drag on economic potential.

Another point overlooked is the algae oil.  The impact on the oil through these processes isn’t known, nor are the proteins and other parts considered.  Algae is a pretty rich trove of carbohydrates, oils and proteins that reason would seem to suggest are quite valuable.

Its much more complex when considering the money needed to farm algae production, process out the products, and balance processes to revenue streams.  But research is getting there and these two research projects offer quite a lot to process engineers for contemplating plant designs.

Algae are a wonderful way to recapture carbon using sunlight.  Getting to products though, with all the value intact at sensible investment and pricing is a very complex matter.  It’s getting there.

Origin’s CEO Riggs Eckelberry said, “By the end of this decade, the project must produce nearly twenty times that amount, propelling Mexico to the front rank of bio-fuel producing nations.”

Mexico’s Economy Ministry provided a grant through The National Council for Science and Technology for its first site.  The project operator is Genesis Ventures of Ensenada, Baja California.  Genesis will develop the site as a model for numerous additional projects to be co-located with large CO2 sources.

Ensenada’s Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education will operate the Genesis site. Genesis will also invite University of Baja California algae researchers to collaborate in the project.

The commonly identified problems, growing stable algal cultures, finding strains that have the most optimal combinations of lipids, carbs and proteins, an economically viable system of harvesting, getting the algae out of the water or the water out of the algae, and finding sustainable and affordable sources of nutrients and CO2 are still on everyone’s mid.

Then there are the eternal bugaboos, sources of water, CO2 in better than atmospheric concentrations, and – Money, great wads of it.

Article author Jim Lane detours out from the basics with a long critical quote that opens the door for the target, Algenol to respond.  Algenol is a firm going for algae direct to fermentation of ethanol.  That target solves the major separation of water and algae problem and take the firm direct to revenue.  Algenol hopes to hit ethanol sales prices at about $1 per gallon – if they do, and sell into a $2.40+ market they’ll do very well.  Algenol is definitely worth a look.  It just might complicate the biomass to ethanol effort is a very unpleasant price structure for competitors.

Page two of the article looks at some algae leaders each with longer synopsis than the truncation offered here.  If algae is an interest, page two is a must read.

First up, Sapphire Energy. These guys are researching the whole production chain with 230 patents or applications in hand.  They’re confident too, projecting they’ll be at 1 billion gallons in the 2020 decade.

Next is Solzyme, a familiar name because of the promotional work on the products already offered instead of the process.  Solazyme has a lot of good partners; it expects to have its Initial Public Stock Offering by April 1st of 2011, not far off.  The odd thing about Solazyme is they grow heterotrophic algae, the ones that don’t need sunlight.  With production contracts in hand from the U.S. Department of Defense, Solazyme is the most real of the companies, already competing.

Joule, the firm of great press releases last year, estimates of 15,000 gallons per acre, bugs happy with fresh, salt or brackist water, and the ‘Solar Converter’, is now operating a pilot plant in Leander, Texas. They say they have demonstrated proof of concept on 10 renewable chemicals back in the lab they describe as “blendstock for end products.  Joule offers disruptive technology, scalable to commercial size, competitive with a $30 per barrel price, and patent protected technology.  It’s an investors dream and it’s too late to get in early.

Aurora Algae comes next.  Aurora seems the oddest of the lot with an optimized strain of pale green, salt-water algae, lighter in color than wild-type algae.  That allows deeper penetration of sunlight, thereby extending the zone for algae reproduction and increasing yield.  The product line isn’t primarily fuel, though.  Aurora is shooting for proprietary algae products, including high concentration eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA Omega-3 fatty acids), high-density proteins, fishmeal and biodiesel.  The Aurora commercial production facility in northwestern Australia should be built and setting up as you read this.

More Algenol Biofuels news –Algenol and Dow Chemical are building a $50 million pilot algae biofuels plant in Freeport, Texas. The plant will be located with Dow’s existing chemicals complex that supplies the CO2 as well as land for the pilot algae facility. Dow said that it was interested in Algenol’s ability to use algae to produce ethanol, which could be used as a base for making ethylene, which is in turn a feedstock for many types of chemicals.  At a cost between $1 and $1.25 Algenol could have a commercial base to leap from quite soon.

PetroAlgae doesn’t actually use algae – they’re working on duckweed, a tiny flowering plant in a drive to protein and biocrude.  PetroAlgae is already setup for animal feed and human protein concentrates.  The ‘pilot’, if it can be called that at 12,500 acres, is said to produce 60 million gallons of fuel and protein revenue of about the same value.

OriginOil’s main business is in the systems, focusing on commercializing its industry leading algae extraction technology platform. This new single focus on extracting oil from algae strategically positions the company to provide the critical connection between algae growers and refiners.  In a collaboration such as Mexico is setting up, OriginOil is a natural fit and likely, essential.

Phycal is going where the oil price is high – Hawaii, because Hawaii generates electricity primarily with oil the competitive bar is high.

The NAABB consortium, with $44 million U.S. taxpayer dollars in hand, a very long list of collaborators has been setting up for over a year.  A bureaucratic device, what happens, one hopes, is at least some of the money is spent on research that makes it back to the industry and economy.  Time will tell, one does wonder what the cash burn rate there might be.

Photon8 is facing straight into the “photobioreactor systems aren’t economic” wind.  The company’s model suggests a reactor producing 1.5 gallons per square meter per year going to nearly 10,000 gallons per acre at perhaps $1.25 per gallon.  Photon8 also is said to have a bug the produces hydrocarbons – no refining needed.

The UK’s Carbon Trust might be on hold.  The latest UK budget has a 40% cut for the Carbon Trust now.

There are others.  Put your favorites in the comments.  If you have a link, it will be held up until moderated. I’ll put through all the ones that are related.

Algae looks a lot better than many would expect from all the quiet and difficulties.  In fact though, Algenol and Joule are using cyanobacteria, and Solazyme is using microalgae.  Algae for biofuel is getting a to be a label more than a description of the species.  But, does that really matter?

The new algae group that the researchers dubbed rappemonads have DNA that is distinctly different from that of other known algae. The rappemonads were found in a wide range of habitats, in both fresh and salt water, and at temperatures ranging from 52 degrees to 79 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rappemonads Collected from the North Pacific Ocean. Click image for more info.

In comparison the press release says humans and mushrooms are more closely related to each other than rappemonads are to some other common algae (such as green algae). Therefore based on their DNA analysis, the researchers believe that they have discovered not just a new species or genus, but a potentially large and novel group of microorganisms.

The study paper has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and was free access at this writing.

MBARI Senior Research Technician Sebastian Sudek the first co-first-author of the paper reporting the discovery of these algae said, “Based on the evidence so far, I think it’s fair to say that rappemonads are likely to be found throughout many of the world’s oceans. We don’t know how common they are in fresh water, but our samples were not from unusual sources – they were from small lakes and reservoirs.”

Following on Rappé’s work the research team developed two different DNA “probes” that were designed to detect the unusual DNA sequences.  Using these new probes, the researchers analyzed samples collected by Worden’s group from the Northeast Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic, the Sargasso Sea, and the Florida Straits, and samples collected by co-author Thomas Richards’ group at NHM from several freshwater sites.

To the teams’ surprise, they discovered evidence of microscopic organisms containing the unusual DNA sequence at all five locations.

Although the rappemonads were fairly sparse in many of the samples, they appear to become quite abundant under certain conditions. For example, water samples taken from the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda in late winter appeared to have relatively high concentrations of rappemonads.  These notations could provide reasons for more intense study to discover what attributes the rappemonads can bring to algae development.

When asked why these apparently widespread algae had not been detected sooner, Sudek speculates that it may in part be due to their size. “They are too small to be noticed by people who study bigger algae such as diatoms, yet they may be filtered out by researchers who study the really small algae, known as picoplankton.”

Sudek explains, “The rappemonads are just one of many microbes that we know nothing about – this makes it an exciting field in which to work.” Worden, in whose lab the research was conducted, and who first noticed the unique sequence in the 1990 paper, then initiated research to “chase down” the story behind that sequence, continues, “Right now we treat all algae as being very similar. It is as if we combined everything from mice up to humans and considered them all to have the same behaviors and influence on ecosystems. Clearly mice and humans have different behaviors and different impacts!”

The team has opened up the door to examining more fully the algae genome from macro down to the pico size.  The fullest bank of genetic information to drawn on is a worthwhile enterprise for the future.

Even though DNA analysis demonstrated that rappemonads were present in their water samples, the researchers were still unable to visualize the tiny organisms because they didn’t know what physical characteristics to look for. However, by attaching fluorescent compounds to the newly developed DNA probes, and then applying these probes to intact algae cells, Eunsoo Kim at Dalhousie was able to make parts of the rappemonads glow with a greenish light. This allowed the researchers to see individual rappemonads under a microscope.

The greenish glow highlighted the rappemonad’s “chloroplasts,” which contain the unique DNA sequence tagged by the new probes. Chloroplasts are used by plants and algae to harvest energy from sunlight in a process called photosynthesis. Because all of the rappemonads contain chloroplasts, the researchers believe they “make a living” through photosynthesis. However, Worden points out that it still needs to be shown that the chloroplasts are functional.

One of the primary goals of Worden’s research is to study marine algae in the context of their environment. Worden feels that such an approach is imperative to understanding how rappemonads and other microorganisms affect large-scale processes in the ocean and in the atmosphere. In coming years her lab will be building upon their recent insights, including the discovery of the rappemonads, to study the roles that different algal groups play in the cycling of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean.

Worden might have a path to more funding using the atmospheric CO2, but factually more value is likely in understanding the life of the rappemonads, what triggers their maximum growth, how they optimize growing in various waters, and what might improve other algae efforts.

While rappemonads are really small, having an inventory of the attributes, particularly how they prosper over such a range of water salinity, could prove to be an important genetic sequence.  How far that could go, perhaps beyond algae and on into other microorganisms is yet to be imagined.

While Ajayan is working at the nano and micro level some of this will scale up.  Heads up –

The Rice team has moved a step closer to creating robust, three-dimensional microbatteries that would charge faster and hold other advantages over conventional lithium-ion batteries. They could power new generations of remote sensors, display screens, smart cards, flexible electronics and biomedical devices.

3-D Nanowire Battery Graphic. Click image for more info.

The batteries employ vertical arrays of nickel-tin nanowires perfectly encased in PMMA, a widely used polymer better known as Plexiglas. The Rice team found a way to reliably coat single nanowires with a smooth layer of a PMMA-based gel electrolyte that insulates the wires from the other counter electrode while allowing ions to pass through.

The process builds upon the lab’s previous research to build coaxial nanowire cables that was reported in Nano Letters last year. In the new work, the researchers grew 10-micron-long nanowires via electrodeposition in the pores of an anodized alumina template. They then widened the pores with a simple chemical etching technique and drop-coated PMMA onto the array to give the nanowires an even casing from top to bottom. A chemical wash removed the template.

The result is forests of coated nanowires — millions of them on a fingernail-sized chip — for scalable microdevices with much greater surface area than conventional thin-film batteries.  The theoretical capacity increase nears 150%.

3-D Nanowire Battery Nanowires

Second point – Ajayan explains, “You can’t simply scale the thickness of a thin-film battery, because the lithium-ion kinetics would become sluggish.”  Thus the design is going to act much faster.

Sanketh Gowda, a graduate student in Ajayan’s lab and postdoctoral researcher Arava Leela Mohana Reddy, worked for more than a year to refine the process.

“We wanted to figure out how the proposed 3-D designs of batteries can be built from the nanoscale up. By increasing the height of the nanowires, we can increase the amount of energy stored while keeping the lithium-ion diffusion distance constant,” said Gowda.

Reddy said, “To be fair, the 3-D concept has been around for a while. The breakthrough here is the ability to put a conformal coat of PMMA on a nanowire over long distances. Even a small break in the coating would destroy it.” He said the same approach is being tested on nanowire systems with higher capacities.

Third point – The team believes the PMMA coating will increase the number of times a battery can be charged by stabilizing conditions between the nanowires and liquid electrolyte, which tend to break down over time.  They have built one-centimeter square microbatteries that hold more energy and that charge faster than planar batteries of the same electrode length. “By going to 3-D, we’re able to deliver more energy in the same footprint,” Gowda said.

In the latest Nano Letters paper the team explores their work in good detail. The most impressive part of the news is the intuitive use of the Plexiglas for the polymer coating and the conditioning it receives for use.  Actually the whole build is very impressive.

For scale up the process cost isn’t discussed.  But there are clues here of great significance for others in battery development.  The toughness of Plexiglas could offer a far more resilient battery beyond the performance gains.

This is a technology to watch.  Now that a 3-D build is shown to work, and quite well in the initial stage, the small lithium ion battery business has a viable source to begin further development.  How tall the rods can get, the variations on the PMMA mix, overall size, and seemingly endless questions and potential seem assured.

Further testing will also be quite interesting as another main issue for batteries is the operating temperatures.  Just how this design acts over temperature changes is of great interest.  If the rod coated with polymer can withstand wide temperature changes as well as the ions assaults over many cycles this technology might be supreme.

Moreover, the total raw lithium needed could also be reduced.  This list just goes on. For those interested in lithium ion technology the Nano Letters paper and particularly the supporting information are must reads.

Perhaps one worry exits, this team (including Rice graduate student Xiaobo Zhan; former Rice postdoctoral researcher Manikoth Shaijumon, now an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram, India; and former Rice research scientist Lijie Ci, now a senior research and development manager at Samsung Cheil Industries) will likely get intense attention from commercial developers.  Let’s hope they can stay working for a couple more years to work out the rest of the fundamentals.

These two life forms offer efficiency; they grow without using energy to make cellulose, the land plant’s answer to structure for gravity, wind and animal assaults.  For comparison algae are thought to produce 50% of the O2 while they’re less than 1% of the total plant biomass on Earth.  That said, adding seaweed or macro algae to the biomass for fuel effort would seem inevitable.

Joanna Schroeder at Scripps. Click image for more info.

Last week Al Fin spotted Joanna Schroeder’s article at domesticfuel.com. It seems Ms. Schroeder talked with B. Greg Mitchell at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego (UCSD-SIO).  Mitchell’s perspective as reported by Schroeder is worth some review.

The Scripps Institute has been researching seaweed for more than 40 years.  It’s safe to assume that just as everyone else, the Scripps Institute seaweed to fuel research hasn’t been front and center for the whole 40 years.  But Mitchell, who as late as 2 years ago, was discussing micro algae in detail.

Schroeder reports Mitchell now believes the research into seaweed will be well rewarded in the benefits it would provide the country including offering solutions for energy security, hunger, water use, land use, biodiversity, and climate.

Seaweed has potential for very high yields and high oil production while thriving on non-arable land. Another benefit is that they grow well in salt water. Traditionally crops will not excel in salt water if they survive at all, and in some areas of the country valuable agricultural land has been taken out of production due to high concentrations of salt.

Saline or Salt Water Aquifers in US. Click image for the largest view.

But as all biology researchers know, not all macro algae strains are created equal. There are strains of seaweeds that hold great promise for bio-energy and others that hold great promise for producing other products such as high protein meals for replacing non-sustainable ocean-caught fishmeals in aquaculture and other animal diets.

For example, there are strains of seaweeds that UCSD-SIO has been studying that grow well inland and can be used to recycle artificial seawater and waste nutrients from chicken ranches or pig farms. Algae has also been used in farm fish operations from cleaning the ponds to providing feed.

Now to the key points.  Mitchell believes that the key to research lies in the lifecycle of the seaweed, especially its sexual phases, “The lifecycle including sexual phases are better known and more easily controlled for some seaweeds,” explained Mitchell. “That may make it easier to breed/hybridize using traditional Mendelian genetics. All companies are looking at how to use classical recombinant methods.”  Mendelian genetics focuses on natural recombination rather than human induced modification and since Mendelian genetics focuses on a natural process, the products created from the research will not have the regulatory issues that have hindered the development of algae products created by genetically modified strains.

Still, whether micro algae or macro algae there are the same problems to solve for commercialization.  Costs of production have to come way way down, the best strains of seaweed need to identified and optimized, and testing of the strains needs expanded.  Scale has to increase to hundreds of acres rather than small tests.  Water has to be removed and oil and useful products taken out. This is just a wee bit of the challenges.

But the results could be astonishing.  The area needed for micro algae production is much less than land plants and macro algae is even more productive.  The land issue isn’t in fact of much note, and saline water is available across wide tracts of the U.S in addition to ocean water.

Land Needed Comparison For Corn Soya Algae. Click image for the largest view.

Mitchell thinks the timeline will shorten up, with major developments in 10 years.  So far all the research is small lab work and needs taken to commercial scale.  “We need several hundred acre demos that would take three years to design, permit and build. Then we need at least two years to get data and improve design,” said Mitchell. “Then we’ll roll out commercial scale over the following five years. We can do all this now at pilot scale but its not yet economically viable. So I see 10 years for this to be turned to economic viability.”

Many first impressions of seaweed farming suggest a plot at sea, but seaweed is one species that should be able to grow inland with proper facilities and management.  As the maps above show the potential is huge and the needed area quite small.  It’s research well worth the effort.

Rob Gardner, an MSU graduate student in chemical and biological engineering said, “It took a lot of work. I was pretty thrilled when it all came together. I’m still kind of in shock about it.” Rob, you’re not alone.  Twice the product in half the time is stunning.

MSU is now offering the algal biofuel technology for licensing. With Gardner the interdisciplinary team members are longtime algae experts — Keith Cooksey, research professor emeritus in microbiology, and Brent Peyton, professor in chemical and biological engineering and associate director of MSU’s Thermal Biology Institute. Representing the College of Engineering and College of Letters and Science, all three belong to MSU’s Algal Biofuels Group, “one of the best cooperative research groups on campus,” according to Cooksey.

Montana State Algae Growth Team. Click image for more info.

Here’s a bit of surprise, way up in Montana, the Algal Biofuels Group is part of MSU’s Energy Research Institute, an umbrella for roughly 35 faculty working in a variety of disciplines. About $15 million in sponsored energy research is conducted at MSU annually.  Way up in Montana, no less.  Granting agencies take note.

Lee Spangler, the Energy Research Institute director said, “We are looking at everything from biofuels, to fuel cells, to wind, to carbon sequestration. This work by the algal group is an exciting example of how we take university research and make it available to the private sector through licensing.”

The MSU algal group also belongs to the Algal Biomass Organization, the world’s largest group devoted to algal biofuel. Peyton presented MSU’s discovery to that group in late September. It was one of four presentations on biofuel from MSU.  It sure took long enough to get the press release out.

On the technical side Cooksey taught Gardner how to grow the algae they used in their experiments. Gardner grew the algae in beakers and tubes in three labs across campus. He then conducted experiments and shared his progress with Cooksey and Peyton. Gardner worked for about 1 1/2 years before the trio confirmed that baking soda was the chemical trigger they’d been seeking. They made their initial discovery in two kinds of brown algae and one type of green.  Gardner notes, “It was a lot of trial and error and failure. We finally came across the right combination.”

Cooksey explains the baking soda may work because it gives algae extra carbon dioxide necessary for its metabolism at a key point in its life cycle. If the baking soda is added too early or too late, the algae don’t respond. But when added at just the right time in the growth cycle, algae produce two to three times the oil in half the time of conventional growth models. The oil, or lipid, is composed of triacylglycerides, the key precursors to biodiesel and biojet fuel.

In processing a doubling to tripling production in half the time is a massive improvement.  Cookley adds the time issue also helps with algal-producing ponds that are prone to contamination.  If growers can produce oil faster, they can reduce the opportunity for contamination to ruin the product. That makes a more, quicker, at less risk process discovery.  Congratulations are in order.

Peyton said the three types of algae used in the MSU study were not closely related, so the MSU discovery should have broad application adding, “We are working on demonstrating this in other varieties.”

Such a massive production process improvement should offer the post growth processes a lower cost raw material.  There remain many tasks in getting oil separation and oil refining to fuel that keeps algae production too expensive for competitive market growth.  But the MSU group has certainly launched a blast of high value innovation that will impact everyone downstream in the algae to fuel research community.

Algae are coming, inching along.  MSU just gave us about a yard.  Good work!

It seems that sodium bicarbonate producers are stocks to watch now too.