Algal dewatering, extraction as low as 1% of total algae cost: study

In Texas, an energy return on investment study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin found that using waste inputs to reduce growing costs can improve energy returns significantly, but algae growth strategies have not yet achieved high enough productivities to generate oils that can compete in fuel markets.

“Under the conditions modeled with new processing technologies, the cost to lyse cells and separate algal oil from water and biomass can be just one percent of the total production cost of algal oil,” said Dr. Peter Kipp, vice president at OpenAlgae. “New technologies are also driving down the cost of harvesting dilute algae.”

The research was funded by OpenAlgae and published in BioEnergy Research (“Energy Return on Energy Investment for Algal Biocrude:  Results for a Research Production Facility,” by C. Beal, R. Hebner, M. Webber, R. Ruoff, and A. Seibert).

An abstract of the research is available here.