In an interesting invention, biofuel experts have developed a specially designed jet mixer to rapidly deliver crude oil in large quantities that turns algae into fuel.
According to the research published by University of Utah in Chemical Engineering Science, the chemical engineers have developed a new kind of jet mixer that extracts the lipids with much less energy than the older extraction method. It is a key discovery that now, puts this form of energy closer to becoming a viable, cost-effective alternative fuel.
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This is, of course, far from the first technology to create environmentally-friendly diesel. Industries have been converting corn and soybeans into fuel for years now, but those methods have plenty of downsides. Every soybean and ear of corn converted into fuel is food that doesn’t feed anyone, it takes lots of land to grow those crops, and transporting the crops from the farm to the factory to turn them into fuel takes a lot of fuel itself.
Algae has none of these disadvantages. Algae is typically grown in vats, and those vats can be placed pretty much anywhere. Algae is cheaper and faster to grow than either corn or soybeans, making it ideal for converting into fuel. And of course, nobody eats algae.
Right now, in order to extract the oil-rich lipids from the algae, scientists have to pull the water from the algae first, leaving either a slurry or dry powder of the biomass. That is the most energy-intensive part of the process. That residue is then mixed with a solvent where the lipids are separated from the biomass. What’s left is a precursor, the biocrude, used to produce algae-based biofuel.
However, this requires so much energy to extract the water from the plants at the beginning of the process, turning algae into biofuel has thus far not been a practical, efficient or economical process.
This technology could also be applied beyond algae and include a variety of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, or any microbial-derived oil, Mohanty added.