How Should You Transform Algae Biomass Into Useful Bio-diesel?

By Michale Adams

[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/jmanzthumb9.jpg]One of probably the most discussed renewable fuel sources in the previous few years has been algae biofuels. With all the world-wide efforts to attempt to reduce our reliance on non-renewable fuels, algal biofuels have been showing potential on being able to scale for the quantities of production to inexpensively replace our dependence on conventional oil sources. Beyond the benefits of currently being renewable, algal biofuels have also shown that they’re considerably far better for the environment in the reduced levels of Carbon Dioxide released during their use. Bio-diesel from algae is one of the alternative fuel sources currently being explored for potential widespread use. To comprehend this we need to first answer the question of what’s biofuel?

What Does Biofuel Consist Of?

Biofuels could be in different forms to including liquid, gas, or solid materials. Biofuels are generally made from any biological carbon-based substances, with corn and soy beans being the most common crops utilized for biodiesel manufacturing. Using these crops requires the land normally used to develop food we eat. As a result, the renewable fuels industry has been investing time and effort into refining the process to remove bio-fuel from algal mass as a third generation bio-fuel.

Algae Fuel Advantages

Algae will grow at 50 to a hundred times faster than corn or soy, and don’t need freshwater or farm land to be grown. Algae can be grown in non potable water or suspended containers located where the land can not be used to grow food. The traditional barriers to efficient use of algae as a biofuel have been the relative low price of oil when compared to the price of extracting the biofuel from algae, however, with improved technology and increased crude oil prices this distance has shrunk over the previous couple of years.

When developed in closed photo bioreactor systems, the algae growth process may be controlled leading to greater yields and increase bio-diesel manufacturing. One more advantage of the algae development process is the algae pulls carbon dioxide from the air and replaces it with clean oxygen. This makes biodiesel algae farms more attractive to place near manufacturing plants that produce excessive amounts of carbon dioxide to help decrease pollution but also benefit the algae grower.

Algae biodiesel has the potential to replace all crude oil world-wide. If algae farms can achieve their potential, then this could be completed 100 million acres in contrast it would take exponentially much more land to achieve the exact same effect with conventional biofuel crops.

How Is Algal Oil Removed from Algae?

Extracting the oil from algae biomass has been the main cost barrier to the expansion of algae biodiesel into the industry. As soon as the algae are harvested, the oils are then extracted through the algae cells. The most rudimentary procedure to do this would be to use an oil press which is similar to how an palm oil press works. The oil press has roughly a 75 percent extraction rate. Another technique used to extract the oil is the hexane solvent extraction. This method results in approximately a 95% extraction rate of the oil from the algae.

The third technique used is the super critical fluids approach which can get up to 100 percent of the algae oil out from the algae. In this method, carbon dioxide is utilized to act as the supercritical fluid. The algal biomass is pressurized and then heated up to change it in to a liquid and gaseous state. Then, the CO2 is mixed with the algae which turns it almost completely into oil. This technique demands a significant investment in equipment and incurs substantial cost. Once the algae oil is extracted, it’s then refined making use of the transesterification process where sodium hydroxide is combined with ethanol to create biodiesel from algae.

Algae Biofuel technology has kicked open the doors for Producing algae fuel, Using algae photo-bioreactors look at this Algae Biodiesel home study course… from this day on is your turn.

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