I-Corps: Commercialization of a Novel, Low-Energy Homogenizer Technology for Algal Oil Extraction

生物柴油是一种可再生能源，可以作为替代石油柴油的替代燃料。尽管已经建造了许多生物柴油生产设施，但用于制造一些生物柴油的原料油(如大豆油)的成本上升，产生了对适合于生物柴油生产的低成本石油替代品的巨大市场需求。该团队计划通过使用从藻类中提取的石油来满足这一需求。藻类是一种小型的光合作用微生物，能将阳光转化为石油和其他高价值产品。藻类每英亩可以生产比任何其他传统生物柴油原料更多的石油，而且不会与粮食生产竞争。尽管其他人也考虑过大规模生产藻类油，但由于从藻类中提取油的加工成本，他们的努力基本上没有成功。该团队开发了一种低成本从藻类中提取石油的技术。拟议的创新是一种从藻类细胞中破裂和提取石油的新技术，在乳制品/食品、制药和化妆品行业中得到了广泛应用。这项技术利用了有关藻类细胞生物力学反应的知识，这些知识被输入到内部计算框架中，该框架优化了我们从藻类中提取石油的系统设计。然后，这些油将被用作生产生物柴油的原料。该技术还可用作低能量均质设备，可服务于乳制品/食品、制药和化妆品行业。拟议的项目是变革性的，因为本提案中描述的方法旨在基于对流体力学、细胞力学和颗粒-流体相互作用的第一原理理解来彻底改变藻类油的提取。

Biodiesel is a renewable energy source that can be used as a drop-in fuel supplement and replacement for petroleum diesel. Though many biodiesel production facilities have been constructed, increases in the cost of the feedstock oil (such as soy oil), from which some biodiesel is made, have created a significant market need for a low-cost oil alternative that is suitable for biodiesel production. This team plans to meet this need by using oil extracted from algae. Algae are small photosynthetic microorganisms which convert sunlight into oil and other high-value products. Algae can produce more oil per acre than any other conventional biodiesel feedstock and does not compete with food production. Though others have looked into producing algae oil on a large scale, their efforts were largely unsuccessful due to processing costs when extracting oil from algae. This team has developed a technology to extract oil from algae at a low cost.The proposed innovation is a novel technique to rupture and extract oil from algae cells that has widespread application to the dairy/food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. The technology uses knowledge about the biomechanical response of algae cells which is input into an in-house computational framework that optimizes the design of our system to extract oil from algae. The oil will then be used as a feedstock for biodiesel production. The technology can also be used as a low-energy homogenization device which can serve the dairy/food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetic industries. The proposed project is transformative as the approach described in this proposal aims to revolutionize algal oil extraction based on first-principles understanding of fluid mechanics, cellular mechanics, and particle-fluid interactions.