Bioengineered Plant Boosts Oil Production For Use in BioFuels

Researchers have bioengineered plants to improve its oil production. Proof of their experiment can be seen from caterpillar larvae that has become fat from consuming the leaves of these plants. This study can lead to better production of biofuels.

Biological sources most specially from agricultural crops like soybean can be used to produce biofuels. An acre of soybean can yield about 50 gallons of biodiesel per year.

But algae surpasses this by far. Biofuel from an acre of algae can produce as much as 1,000 to 5,000 gallons per year. Biofuel production from these sources are renewable, economical, and environment friendly. Algae is easy and fast to cultivate. It only takes one to ten days to harvest fuel from algae and does not compete with regular agricultural crops for land space and water.

The process in producing biofuel from algae involves the photosynthesis. Algae converts sunlight to biomass which undergoes a chemical process to produce biofuel.

Bi-Functional Alkane Producing Enzyme Developed For More Efficient Biofuel Production

Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a bi-functional or dual enzyme that can continuously produce alkane. This can lead to using the enzyme in bacteria, algae, or plants to produce biofuels that need no further processing.

Alkanes are highly combustible chemical compounds made up of hydrogen and carbon atoms. These compounds are called hydrocarbons, more specifically, saturated hydrocarbons because they are saturated with hydrogen atoms (every carbon atom is attached to at least two hydrogen atoms). Hydrocarbons naturally occur in crude oil, where decomposed organic matter provides an abundance of carbon and hydrogen.

The first four alkanes from the group are methane, ethane, propane, and butane. Alkane can be identified because of the "-ane" suffix which is paired up with a number prefix such as dec (decane), hec (hecane), oct (octane).

When alkanes burn, they form H₂O and CO₂ - water and carbon dioxide. Because of this, they are highly valued as clean fuels. The first four alkane are used directly as fuels. A mixture of other alkanes also produce fuel. Gasoline is a mixture of alkanes from pentane up to about decane.

Aside from being used as a fuel source, alkanes are also used in other products such as plastic, paint, cosmetics, detergent and various others.

Integrated Hydropyrolysis and Hydroconversion Pushes Biofuel Production Forward To The Future

Renewable energy comes from sources that are naturally replenished. Natural occurring resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, ocean tides, and geothermal heat (geysers) can be utilized to provide energy without worrying about depletion.

Modern renewable energy can be substituted for fossil fuels in four areas: power generation, heating and cooling, transport fuels, and rural/off-grid energy services.

Biofuel promises an efficient, sustainable and renewable energy source for generations to come. It is derived through biological carbon fixation. Carbon fixation is the reduction of inorganic carbon (carbon dioxide) to organic compounds by living organisms.

Biological material from living, or recently living organisms called biomass is processed to produce these biofuels. One such example of biomass source is algae. Since it can be cultivated in sewage water or saltwater, it does not compete with food crops in terms of land space or freshwater sources.

Fueling the future with renewable gasoline and diesel

A new process for converting municipal waste, algae, corn stalks and similar material to gasoline, diesel and jet fuel is showing the same promise in larger plants as it did in laboratory-scale devices, the developers reported here today. It was part of the 244th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, which continues through Thursday.

"These results are essential in establishing the credibility of a process that may seem too good to be within the realm of possibility," said Martin Linck, Ph.D. "However, we are moving steadily toward having multiple demonstration-scale facilities in operation by 2014, with each facility producing a range of 3,500-17,500 gallons of fuel a day from non-food plant material. We will be designing commercial-scale facilities that could produce as much as 300,000 gallons per day from the same kinds of feedstocks."

The technology, termed Integrated Hydropyrolysis and Hydroconversion (IH2), already has the credibility of its developer, the Gas Technology Institute (GTI), where Linck is a scientist. Located in Des Plaines, Ill, GTI is a nonprofit energy technology research organization whose accomplishments during the last 70 years include nearly 500 products, 750 licenses and more than 1,200 associated patents.

Algae Shows Great Promise As A Next Generation Sustainable and Renewable Bio Fuel

Algae Biofuel is being touted as an efficient, sustainable and renewable energy source for generations to come.

Algae has more oil per pound compared to traditional biological sources such as corn and soybean. Since it can be cultivated in sewage water or saltwater, it does not compete with food crops in terms of land space or freshwater sources.

Algae is also easy to cultivate. It can grow twenty to thirty times faster than traditional food crops with a harvesting cycle of one to ten days. This gives this alternative fuel source an almost abundant and continuous supply all year round.

For examply, biodiesel is typically sourced from soybeans. With soybeans, the yield per acre per year is about 50 gallons. Comparing this to bio-oil that can be sourced from algae, the yield would be anywhere between 1,000 to 5,000 gallons per acre per year.

The reason for this is because algae efficiently converts sunlight to biomass. Through chemical processes, oil can be extracted from this and converted to various oils and fuels that can even be used in combustible engines.

Toward a more economical process for making biodiesel fuel from algae

Scientists today described an advance toward a long-sought economical process that could turn algae, like the stuff of pond scum, into a revolutionary new and sustainable source of biodiesel and other "green" fuels. Their report on the use of an environmentally friendly process for extracting oil from algae came at a session of 16th annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, being held here June 18-20 by the Green Chemistry Institute, part of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society.

"Algae has great promise as a next-generation biofuel, a fuel that is sustainable and renewable," explained Julie Zimmerman, Ph.D., who leads the research team. "It has more oil per pound than corn and soybeans, does not divert crops from the food supply and can potentially be grown in sewage water and seawater without impacting the freshwater supply." The presentation was part of a symposium on green fuel sources, abstracts for which appear below.

Lindsay Soh, a graduate student in Zimmerman's lab, described their efforts toward a simple process that would extract the fatty molecules called lipids used to make biodiesel from algae and transform them into usable fuel in one fell swoop. This could make biodiesel production from algae cheaper, faster and greener than current methods, which require separate steps — each with its own vessel and chemicals — to perform those operations. This "one-pot" reaction uses so-called supercritical carbon dioxide, which uses elevated pressures and temperatures so that it fills its container like a gas but is as dense as a liquid.

Gasoline from Algae

Phil Savage and a team of engineers at the University of Michigan are at the forefront of a new study. Growing gasoline; Oil manufactured by algae.

Oil from algae. That's the future energy source we may be looking at. And hey, it's as green as it can get. Even the algae are literally green!

Using treated sewage as a source for their nutrients, these algae can grow real fast. The reason? They are very efficient in converting sunlight into biomass.

PhD student Bobby Levine says, "Typically, in America, we make biodiesel out of soybeans and we get something on the order of 50 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year from soy. With algae, the estimates range very widely, but you can get anywhere from between 1,000 to 5,000 gallons of bio-oil per acre per year."

The oilfield of the future will be a farm. And Savage's process is two times more efficient than present technology in algae oil production.

He elaborates, "We use more of what's there. You know, with the biodiesel process, people are excited if they have an algae that's 50 percent oil, but then right away they're only using 50 percent of the mass, of the biomass. With our approach, we’d like to be able to liquefy, you know, 100 percent..."

Video: Biofuel by the University of Missouri Systems:

In order to achieve this is similar to how crude oil is converted to usable fuel. The algae after being "treated" in a hot sand bath, is brought to a so called refinery. In this case, another laboratory. Here, researchers are creating molecules or catalysts that will rearrange the structure of the algae in a way that they will resemble fuel that can be used in a combustible engine. And to add to it, they try to squeeze every last drop of fuel they can get.

Study reporter Lisa Raffensperger says, "They’ll be genetically modifying microbes like E. coli to digest the waste. Ideally, the waste will also be converted into useful fuel. It’s just one more way to “close the loop,” as these researchers say. To minimize energy input and reduce carbon emissions..."

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