Why Algae?

Presently, there is a high demand for commercially viable, renewable alternatives to fossil fuels as energy sources. Recent attention has focused on biofuels, i.e. fuel derived from biomass directly and indirectly, as a solution to the alternative fuel initiative. In addition to providing a renewable energy source, plant-derived biofuels provide a potential solution to the present problem of excess green house gas emissions by sequestering carbon dioxide during photosynthesis.

Biomass grown in high moisture environments such as microalgae, macroalgae, fungi and bacteria is a promising source of plant-derived biofuels. In the right conditions, these aquatic microorganisms utilize photosynthetic energy, carbon and nutrients to rapidly grow biomass containing compounds such as proteins, carbohydrates, cellulose, hemicellulose, and energy reserves in the form of long chain oxygenated hydrocarbons such as fatty acids and glycerides (collectively lipids) within the cellular material. See illustration below:

The lipids, once extracted and purified, present an excellent feedstock for a variety of liquid fuel production alternatives. Lipids extracted from biomass can be used directly as liquid fuel feedstocks, or they may have higher value uses such as omega-3 fatty acids being used as nutritional additives. For example, biomass-derived lipids can be a viable feedstock to traditional refining operations producing products such as straight chain alkanes suitable as a direct replacement product to gasoline. Alternatively, lipids such as triglycerides can be reacted to directly form esters and selectively utilized as a biodiesel liquid fuel, replacing current edible oils being used to produce biodiesel.

Additionally, the lipid depleted biomass is a valued resource. Lipid depleted biomass has many alternative applications, including use as a feedstock for plastic additives (glycols from biomass sugars), use in animal nutrition as a feed, and in other fuel producing alternatives (syngas production, methane production by anaerobic digestion, ethanol production via fermentation, etc.)

Biomass Production Crop Comparison

Microalgae has the potential to be a major source of biofuels worldwide and is unique in sequestering carbon dioxide. Among other advantageous attributes, microalgae grow at a rapid pace, they are able to grow in very inhospitable conditions, they are not typically considered a human food source, and land and water use for growing microalgae is typically not competitive with land and water required for conventional food production. Microalgae production for liquid fuels and carbon sequestering is a revolutionary renewable biofuel platform. Microalgae has the potential to transform the energy industry by supplying cost transformational biofuel production systems, and novel applications of existing technologies to improve the production cost to a point competitive with fossil fuels.