SBIR Phase II: Electroconcentration, Separation, and Rupture of Bioalgae for Fuel Production

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目解决了从生物藻类中采油的创新方法的需求，特别是对生物藻类进行脱水和回收处理后的藻类流进行再利用。本课题的创新将促进现有技术的经济替代方案的发展，并导致生物燃料更有利地应用于市场。目前的脱水技术（如离心和化学絮凝）是能源密集型技术，需要化学添加剂，这些添加剂可能会污染石油，导致浓缩生物藻类用于燃料生产的成本过高。二期项目的目标是开发、扩大和整合FARADAYIC电浓缩和电浮选工艺与我们的战略合作伙伴Algaeventure Systems （AVS）正在开发的收割、脱水和干燥（HDD）技术，以快速有效地脱水生物藻类。这项研究的更广泛的影响是在能源和成本的节省，将导致创新的脱水过程。这项技术将使一种成本效益高、能源效率高、几乎碳中和的生物燃料来源成为可能，而且不会与粮食作物竞争。生物燃料技术通过将二氧化碳储存为脂质而大大减少二氧化碳排放（例如来自发电厂），预计将对环境产生重大影响。这项技术将适用于藻类养殖行业的其他领域（生物塑料、染料、制药等），也有助于提高对电场对藻类浓缩过程影响的理解。最后，本项目为教师和本科生提供了通过NSF RET/REU项目获得研究经验的机会。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project addresses the need for innovative approaches to harvesting oil from bio-algae, specifically to dewater the bio-algae and recycle the processed algae stream for reuse. The subject innovation will facilitate the development of an economical alternative to current technologies, and result in a more favorable application of bio-fuels to the marketplace. Current dewatering technologies (e.g., centrifugation and chemical flocculation) are energy intensive and require chemical additives that can contaminate the oil, resulting in prohibitively high costs to concentrate bio-algae for fuel production. The Phase II program objective is to develop, scale up and integrate the FARADAYIC ElectroConcentration and ElectroFlotation Processes with Harvesting, Dewatering and Drying (HDD) technology being developed by our strategic partner, Algaeventure Systems (AVS), to quickly and efficiently dewater bio-algae.The broader impacts of this research are in the energy and cost savings that will result from the innovative dewatering process. This technology will enable a cost effective, energy efficient, nearly carbon-neutral source of bio-fuel that does not compete with food crops. Bio-fuel technology is anticipated to have a significant environmental impact by greatly reducing carbon dioxide emissions (e.g. from power plants) by storing the carbon dioxide as lipids. This technology would find applicability in other areas of the algae cultivation industry (bio-plastics, dyes, pharmaceuticals, etc.) and also result in an improved understanding of electric field effects on algae concentration processes. Finally, this project provides opportunities for teachers and undergraduates to gain research experience through the NSF RET/REU programs.