- Services
- Solutions
- Cleantech Forum events
- Jobs
- About us
Dow, Algenol to build pilot algae-based biorefinery
June 29, 2009 - by Lisa Sibley, Cleantech Group
print
reprint
Midland, Mich.-based Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) and Algenol Biofuels said today they are teaming up to build a pilot, algae-based integrated biorefinery to convert carbon dioxide into ethanol.
The facility, to be located at Dow’s Freeport, Texas site, is expected to incorporate Algenol’s technology. The company said it has a seawater-based way to inexpensively generate up to a billion gallons of algal ethanol per year in bioreactors (see Turning algae into ethanol, and gold).
Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed, but Algenol said it’s applied for a grant for an unspecified amount from the U.S. Department of Energy to help support the plant. Upon approval, Dow and other collaborators plan to work with Algenol to prove the technology can be achieved on a commercial scale. Other collaborators include National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Membrane Technology & Research.
Dow said it plans to develop the advanced materials and specialty films for the photobioreactor system. Dow is also expected to provide the technology and expertise related to water treatment solutions.
Dow said it plans to provide Algenol with access to a CO2 source for the biorefinery from a nearby Dow manufacturing facility. The CO2 is expected to serve as the carbon source for the ethanol produced. The result, according to a news release, would be a CO2 capture process that converts industrially-derived CO2 into more sustainable fuels and chemicals.
One of Algenol’s competitors, South San Francisco, Calif.-based Solazyme, which has a process using fermentation to speed the growth of algae in the dark, said it plans to build a plant capable of producing about 100 million gallons of algae-based diesel per year (see Solazyme joins algae elite with additional $45M).
Copyright © 2009 Cleantech Group LLC. All rights reserved, including right of redistribution.
Coverage brought to you by
Cleantech developments making news in the past 24 hours
View the last week of cleantech developments here | Subscribe to full feed 
Comments
algae is a false hope
Submitted on July 6th, 2009 by Christopher Calder (not verified)Growing algae to make biodiesel is being touted as a cure-all for all our biofuel problems, but we are still stuck with the fact that algae need solar energy to turn carbon dioxide into fuel. To make biodiesel, algae are used as organic solar panels which output oil instead of electricity. Researchers brag that algae can produce 15 times more fuel per acre of land than growing corn for ethanol, but that still means we would need an impossibly large number of acres (about 133 million acres) of concrete lined open-air algae ponds to meet our highway energy demands. Those schemes that grow algae in closed reactor vessels, without sunlight, necessitate the algae being fed sugars or starches as a source of chemical energy. The sugars or starches must then be made from corn, wheat, beets, or other crop, so you are simply trading ethanol potential to make oil instead of vodka. If we construct genetically engineered super-algae that are capable of out-competing native algae strains that contaminate open air algae ponds, the new gene-modified algae will be immediately carried to lakes, reservoirs, and oceans all over the world in the feathers of migrating birds, with unknown and possibly catastrophic results.
Post new comment