Genetically Modified Algae Are Magnetic, For Ease of Manipulation

By Clay Dillow Posted 10.19.2011

Magnetic Algae The wild algae on the left settles to the bottom of the test tube. The magnetic algae on the right sticks to the wall thanks to the magnet. Los Alamos National Laboratory via PhysOrg

roving that there’s always a different way to approach a problem, researchers at Los Alamos National Lab have devised a pretty clever method of algae harvesting that could take a major chunk out of the cost of algae-based biofuel production. And all they had to do was create a magnetic organism.

Scientists at LANL have genetically engineered a new kind of algae that is magnetic, which could lead to new and simple ways of both extracting genetically engineered biofuel-producing algae from water and extracting the lipids that contain the hydrocarbons from the algae. This part of the process generally accounts for roughly a third of the total cost of algae-based biofuel production, but now could conceivably be performed with a simple permanent magnet. That’s a lot simpler and cheaper than complex separating machines and other mechanical means of dividing algae from solutions.

The team created their GM magnetic algae by lifting a gene from magnetotactic bacteria--those are bacteria that use the Earth’s magnetic field to get around--and dropping it into the algae. When expressed, the gene causes the production of magnetic nanoparticles in the algae just as it does in the bacteria. Those in turn can be used to manipulate the algae.

The result: an algae that can be separated from a solution with a magnet. Why didn’t we think of this sooner?

Original post available here.

SeQuential Pacific Biodiesel hits production milestone

By Bryan Sims | November 01, 2011

For three years running, SeQuential Pacific Biodiesel LLC, a joint venture between SeQuential Biofuels and Hawaii-based Pacific Biodiesel Inc., has been offering premium biodiesel from its plant in Salem, Ore., to loyal customers in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest region. The company’s community-scale model is paying off as the plant reached a milestone surpassing its 10 millionth gallon of biodiesel produced from used cooking oil.

The plant, which officially came online in the fall of 2008, launched with an annual capacity of 1 MMgy, but it has since ramped up production volume, said general manager Tyson Keever, adding that he expects his plant to hit about 5 million gallons this year alone.

“The Pacific Biodiesel model of community-scale I think has really been validated in what we’re doing here with vertical integration from [waste cooking oil] collection to production to retail,” Keever told Biodiesel Magazine.

Through its subsidiary Encore Oils, SeQuential Pacific collects used cooking oil from approximately 5,000 restaurants in Salem and neighboring sites in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The oil is processed at its Salem production facility into biodiesel, which is then sold either directly to its customers or sold through terminals and distributors. Keever said his company is retailing B99 for about $3.99 per gallon right now.

“We try to have a strong relationship with the restaurants and focus on production that’s available from regional feedstock, and then try to have a strong relationship with the end-user as well,” Keever said.

He added that the company intends to secure additional contracts for used cooking oil from restaurants, along with potentially making efficiency upgrades to the Salem plant with help from Pacific Biodiesel, which is currently building a biodiesel plant on the Big Island of Hawaii expected to be operational by early next year.

“We’re hoping to be able to follow suit with some of that new technology soon thereafter,” Keever said.

Producers like SeQuential Pacific are benefitting from an in-state biodiesel mandate that went into effect in April when the 15 MMgy threshold was triggered requiring all diesel fuel sold in the state to contain a minimum of 5 percent biodiesel. Diesel fuels used in locomotives, marine engines and home heating applications are exempt from the mandate.

Original post available here.

Australian algae facility passes environmental permitting process

By Luke Geiver | October 19, 2011

Algae.Tec, an algae-to-fuels developer from Australia, has three years to prove out its enclosed modular algae growing systems after the Shoalhaven City Council of Australia approved the necessary permitting to Algae.Tec. The Environmental Planning and Assessment Act will give Algae.Tec the go-ahead to build a demonstration facility called Shoalhaven One near the Manildra Group’s ethanol facility south of Sydney. The permit is effective immediately, and after three years, Algae.Tec will have the option of expansion. The site near the ethanol facility will capture CO2 from the ethanol plant’s fermentors for use as a growth medium to feed the enclosed growth systems developed and constructed by Algae.Tec in an 18,200 square foot facility in Atlanta.

Roger Stroud, executive chairman for Algae.Tec, said that the system is one of the only advanced biofuels production approaches that utilizes such a system, and according to the company, the system “is less than one tenth the land footprint of pond growth options, while its enclosed module system is designed to produce algae biomass in virtually any environment on the planet.”

The permitting granted by Shoalhaven now means that the company can continue on its vision to supply the enclosed systems to places like China, or build a commercial facility in Perth. Each enclosed photobioreactor is housed in a used freight car optimized to house the system. The price for each unit is roughly $125,000. The demonstration facility will use the units built in Atlanta to test various industrial CO2 off-gases from the ethanol facility in addition to the ethanol fermentors, all according to Stroud, to help Algae.Tec test and verify the use of multiple input gas streams into the system.

The container systems utilize the CO2 piped into each container, as well as rotating parabolic light collectors that feed the captured light into a fiber optic system to help the algae grow in ideal conditions. Each module can produce roughly 250 dry tons of algae per year, and for a grouping of 500 units linked together, Peter Hatfull, managing director for the company, said that the cost would equal roughly $64 million. Stroud said that the fuel (biodiesel) produced from the algae grown near the Manildra site will be used by the armed forces.

Original post available here.

$2.2 million grant enables algae research

A recent $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy is allowing Washington University to take part in a collaborative study on fuel-generating bacteria.

The goal of the project is to find ways to modify certain photosynthetic bacteria to generate clean energy more efficiently, Dr. Himadri B. Pakrasi, George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg professor in the College of Arts & Sciences, said.

Pakrasi, the current director of the University’s International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy & Sustainability (I-CARES), is one of the principal researchers involved in the project.

“It turns out that we can modify the sugar generated by each of these cell factories to build chemical precursors that are key to the production of biofuels and many other [useful] chemicals,” he said.

Pakrasi said research on photosynthetic energy has been ongoing. It centers on the natural process of photosynthesis which is carried out by all plant cells and which uses water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to produce sugar without creating harmful waste products.

Specifically, researchers use cyanobacteria, a form of blue-green algae, because they can easily manipulate its genetic composition.

The three-year study, which began last month, is a collaborative effort with Purdue University and Pennsylvania State University. Pakrasi said that working with the other institutions will enable the project to achieve greater success.

“No individual research group has all the expertise needed to make success. It is the collective effort that produces the beautiful product,” Pakrasi said.

While photosynthetic energy is quickly garnering widespread attention, with many laboratories around the world performing similar research, the inefficiency of the processes involved has prevented its commercial use.

This particular research links together two modern approaches: systems and synthetic biology. The systems approach involves studying the cyanobacterium to understand its metabolism and the way it interacts with other things. The synthetic approach uses this information to combine the bacterium with new parts, such as genes or proteins, to make important molecules like polyethylene, which is important in the rubber industry.

Researchers involved expect the first paper of the project to be published early in the summer of 2012.

“This century should be totally dedicated toward solving [the] whole issue of energy,” Dr. Pakrasi said. “And…students should be passionate about it.”

Original post is available here: http://www.studlife.com/news/academics/2011/10/31/2-2-million-grant-enables-algae-research/

Algae-Powered Plane Will Debut at Berlin Air Show

EADS’s algae-fueled plane will be making its first public appearance this week in Berlin. (image: eads.com)

The first airplane to fly on a 100-percent algae fuel will take to the air in Berlin this week, reported the news service AFP. EADS, a European aerospace conglomerate that operates Airbus and other aviation subsidiaries, has developed a plane that will run on pure algae-based biofuel and will be showing it off at the Berlin Air Show (ILA) that runs from June 9 to June 13.

The company’s technical director, Jean Botti, said that this is an unprecedented achievement:

At the ILA, we are going to fly for the first time a craft with biofuel that has been made 100 per cent from algae. That is a world premiere.

According to EADS promotional material, the algae biofuel has higher energy content than conventional jet fuel and causes no change in performance.

EADS’s demonstration will be the latest example of algae’s potential as a liquid fuel source with applications not just in airplanes but in diesel engines and home oil heating systems. But despite EADS work on alternative fuels, Botti does not believe algae-based fuels will eliminate the need for petroleum fuels in aviation anytime soon: “If 10 per cent of our fleet is flying with biofuel in 2040, I would be extremely happy.”