New algae fuel alchemy gets $3M

Arizona State University officials said today researchers have received a $3 million for a new algae spinoff company that's developed a kerosene-based aviation fuel derived from algae.

The scientists leading the effort are professors Qiang Hu and Milton Sommerfeld of ASU’s Laboratory for Algae Research & Biotechnology. To date, the team says it has already moved the algae-based biofuel system from laboratory bench to a pilot scale production system. The team said the new approach has cost reduction benefits much greater than traditional methods of producing kerosene from petroleum.

The new biofuel initiative is a collaborative project between Heliae Development, LLC and Science Foundation Arizona. This project will focus on the commercial production of kerosene from algae using technology patented by the two scientists.

Professors Hu and Sommerfeld have identified and characterized algal strains capable of converting portions of their cellular mass into oil that contains high concentration of medium chain fatty acids. When the oil is deoxygenated, the resulting hydrocarbon chains are similar to those found in kerosene, according to the scientists. When mixed with small amounts of fuel additives, called JP8 or Jet A, the fuel is suitable for jet planes.

The advantage claimed by the ASU team’s approach is it eliminates costly chemicals typically required for cracking these long fatty acid chains.

Heliae will provide research funding of $1.5 million to ASU for development of specific algal strains for use in jet fuel. Strategic Research Group is to match dollar-for-dollar the investments by Heliae and receive an equity stake in the company along with compensation from licensing fees and commercialization income.

Several thousand miles to the east, University of Virginia researchers have announced development of commercial production models for growing algae more efficiently. They believe the proper balance of CO2 and organic material can boost oil production by as much as 40 percent.

The work by University of Virginia researchers is still in its early stages, but they’re confident that the application of proven engineering disciplines will significantly boost typically algae production yields.

“We’re still dealing with preliminary data, so it’s hard to say how good the numbers are at this point,” said Lisa Colosi, University of Virginia professor of civil and environmental engineering, and part of the interdisciplinary research team, to the Cleantech Group.

Today growing algae in pond like environments typically yield only about one percent by the weight of algae (see Turning algae into ethanol, and gold).

That approach of letting algae grow in water with natural inputs of carbon and sunlight can be used to reduce solid waste matter and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, such as coal power-plant flue gas. Those gases typically contain about 10-to-30 times as much carbon dioxide as normal air.

“We are trying to do a baseline assessment of the algae lifecycle and thereby be able to quantify it much better,” said Colosi. “One thing that makes me nervous is the aspect of scaling algae production—a large part of my frustration is the anecdotal way in which the field is going.”

Leading algae biofuel companies like LiveFuels, GreenFuel Technologies and Solazyme are racing to scale production volumes. It's a crowded field of startups that includes many others, such as Blue Marble Energy, Solena, Inventure Chemical and Solix Biofuels. All have the same challenges when it comes to ramping up living cells to produce reliable volumes for a fuel hungry economy.

Solazyme, for example, has opted to use micro-algae tanks in the dark outside (see Solazyme joins algae elite with additional $45M). The algae is produced by feeding it processed switchgrass.

The deal between Solazyme and Imperium, for example, involves Solazyme growing proprietary strains of microalgae, extracting the oil and then delivering it to Imperium for its biodiesel production process.

Scientists have long known that algae are biological factories capable of leveraging their photosynthesis characteristics to transform carbon dioxide and sunlight into energy.

In doing so, these small plant cells can double their weight several times a day and in doing so produce oil some 30 percent times more oil per acre than soybeans, according to U.S. Department of Energy. Like soybean oil, algae derived oil can be burned directly in diesel engines or further refined into biodiesel.

The Virginia Coastal Energy Research Council has made a commitment to renewable energy sources such as algae and wind power, the researchers said. And the objective is to investigate and find economic and environmentally sound practices for energy production.

“There are significant economic issues to focus on,” said Colosi. “Let’s not forget that the first generation of algae commercial efforts were tabled back in the last 1970s and 80s when gas prices dropped.”

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