Biofuels from Microalgae
Through access to the research base and expertise at SAMS, SRSL provide a consultancy service specialising in the use of micro-algae for lipid/biodiesel production, as well for use in bioprospecting projects.
Microalgae comprise a vast group of oil producing organisms, existing as unicells, colonies and extended filaments, capable of growing under a wide variety of conditions. Microalgae are more efficient converters of solar energy than terrestrial plants, thus they have been considered for the production of oils.
Whilst microalgae can be anaerobically digested to produce methane and fermented to produce ethanol, their greater potential value lies in the production of biodiesel. Biodiesel from microalgae has two key advantages over biodiesel produced from other plant oils:
- Microalgae produce high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids. This gives microalgal biodiesel much better cold weather properties. It is fluid at lower temperatures, and so allows diesel engines to function well in cold conditions
- Microalgae produce 20 to 30 times more oil than temperate plant oil crops when cultured in photobioreactors or on land in open ponds.
Researchers at SAMS are currently investigating:
- Sustainable production of high-oil-yielding microalgae strains
- Extraction of the oil from the algae
- Conversion of microalgal oil into biodiesel
The €6 million, EU-funded BioMara project (led by SAMS) aims, in part, to facilitate commercial biodiesel production by first identifying the high-yielding microalgal strains and then determining the optimal conditions for cultivating them.
Biomara website
Carbon Trust Biofuels Challenge Award:
In this Biofuels Challenge award, the Carbon Trust put together a “dream team” of eleven leading UK institutions to work together to find a winning formula for cultivating 70 billion litres of algae biofuel a year by 2030. This will be the equivalent to 6% of road transport diesel and a saving of over 160 million tonnes of CO2 every year. SAMS was one of eleven institutions selected from over 80 initial proposals following an extensive competition and assessment process.
The £500k award to SAMS, entitled “Control of Grazers” (COG) addresses the problem that algal grazing has the potential to devastate the whole “crop”. COG aims to develop robust methodologies for the early detection of protozoan “infection” of algal mass-cultures. In addition, management strategies will be developed to prevent/reduce, damage caused by protozoan grazing.
Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa (CCAP)
This is a National Facility at SAMS and holds the largest algal culture collection in Europe, over 2700 strains. Strains are available for purchase online for research and commercial ventures such as bioprospecting or culture for extraction of by-products.
Using this facility, research at SAMS aims to:
- Screen of all the oil hyper-productive strains
- Isolate wild strains of microalgae characterised by high lipid content, high CO2/O2 growers, and high stress resistance capable of growth in outdoor conditions.
- Produce oil hyper-productive mutants, to improve strains’ oil-production capabilities and stability.
- Cryopreserve promising strains to ensure the phenotypic and genotypic long-tem stability of the cultures for future commercial exploitation.
