A US Department of Energy study said that this concentrated algae mucilage can be converted to bio-crude in less than an hour Perhaps some day in the future, airplanes, vans, and cars will all be accelerated with materials like pond mud. A new technology claims that concentrated algal mucilage can be converted into bio-crude oil in less than an hour. This mucus consists of water and algae, which weigh from 10% to 20% of the total weight. At the time of conversion, the mucus was continuously fed into a high-tech pressure cooker. The temperature in the pan was about 350 degrees Celsius and the pressure reached nearly 204 standard atmospheres. High temperature and pressure can keep the mixture liquid. Douglas Elliott, a researcher at the National Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of the US Department of Energy, said that in the pressure cooker, some "technology that others have not yet mastered" will separate lipids from other minerals in plants, such as phosphorus in water. One hour later, under gravity, the crude oil completely separated from the water and flowed to the other end. Douglas Elliott said: “We can purify these crude oils to make them into liquid hydrocarbons and eventually replace petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.†Future water treatment steps can even recover methane from the remaining plant material – Essentially natural gas. On the other hand, the nitrogen-rich water left after the separation, as well as the recovered phosphorus and other minerals, can be used to produce more algae. Douglas Elliott and colleagues' papers on the process have been accepted by Algal Research magazine. Genifuel Group, a Utah-based biofuels company, has also licensed the technology and is working with industry partners to establish a pilot plant. Re-enabled technology The technology used by Douglas Elliott and his colleagues to produce bio-crude oil is known as "hydrothermal liquefaction technology." In the 1970s, this technology was once very cutting-edge. However, later researchers' interest gradually shifted to the cultivation of high-fat content algae strains, and this technology encountered a cold spell. In order to obtain crude oil from these higher-yielding algae, the algae need to be dried first and then extracted. The extraction process consumes a lot of energy and is therefore very expensive. The hydrothermal liquefaction technology “has the advantage of being able to fully utilize the entire algal biomass and therefore has a significant advantage, since it is no longer necessary to simply pursue the accumulation of lipid content or the extraction of lipids,†said energy analyst at FTI Counslting, a London consulting company. Aris Karcanias said, "In addition, there is no longer any need to use a lot of energy for algae drying." Despite these advantages, Douglas Elliott explained that until now, most of the demonstrations of this technology were done in batch reactors in the lab. This means that the research team can only get one batch of crude oil at a time. In addition, they also use chemical solvents to separate water from oil. Using the continuous process described in the paper, Elliott said: "We have found that if we control it properly, we no longer need these chemical steps." Challenges ahead According to Douglas Elliott, if algae bioenergy is to have a place in the global energy market, efficient algae production must be available to ensure that there is enough raw material for conversion into biofuels. On the other hand, the crude oil extracted from algae also has some regulatory obstacles in its use. It is necessary to redraft standards and regulations on whether to allow these fuels to be mixed with petroleum fuels or whether they can replace petroleum fuels. Elliott explained: "In fact, the two do look a bit different, and they are slightly different in nature." According to Aris Karcanias, apart from the Genifuel Group, which is working with the U.S. Department of Energy, other companies that are chasing algae bioenergy technologies are also worthy of attention, including Sapphire Energy, Cellana, and Synthetic Genomics. )Wait. Regarding this industry, Aris Karcanias said: “Future research needs to increase the output of algae crude oil on a continuous basis, and demonstrate the ability to treat wastewater and optimize nutrient recycling.†If these are all on a commercial scale, “That It will be a very important and very useful step," he added.
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Fresh algal mucilage can be converted into bio-crude oil and refined into alternative petrol fuel
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