Biodiesel from Diatoms

Diatoms grown in a tank using Urine as a the source of nutrients N and P and Nualgi as the micro nutrient input.

Diatom Algae in China

http://sztqb.sznews.com/html/2010-01/13/content_928452.htm

Shenzhen local newsper makes a featured report about Prof Jawkai Wang's project to use Diatom Algae for bioremediation of lakes and for biodiesel.

Important facts in the report:

1. The government of Kunming city, Yunnan province reached an agreement with Wang’s company to start the polution treatment project of Dianchi lake this year. At present, the government of Kunming city plans to fund 1.5 million yuan and will give another 18 million yuan six months later when the feasibility report is finished.

2. After the project in Dianchi lake, he will probably take part in the polution treatment of Taihu laike.

3. He explained to the reporter about the principles of pollution treatment with microalgae as follows:

“The reason why waters are polluted is because there too many organic nitrogen, phosphorus etc in the lake, which are in fact “fertilizers”. By using controllable algae to eat up these fertilizers, the waters can be cleaned. Conventional open-pond cultivation of algae is liable to invasion of foreign algae species, resulting in secondary pollution. Through accurate control of the nutritional salts in the waters, especially dissolvable silica, the grow rate of diatoms can be maximized so that diatoms are significantly predominant over other foreign algae species, making the diatom culturing fluid less susceptible to pollution from foreign algae species.

4. He estimates that the dry algae yield in his project will reach 270 tons per hectare per year based on his maximum daily yield, as compared to the conventional yield of only 10-20 tons per hectare per year. And the oil content in the diatom will be up to 24%.

Biodiesel from Diatoms

"Note that an algal oil slick has now appeared on top of the water, as the oil-laden diatoms begin to leak oils. Oily foams, are now forming in this oil-production photobioreactor.

Note the large oily bubble that has formed at the water line at the lower right corner."
http://www.fossilfreedom.com/summer.html

Mr Patrick Ward of Richmond, VA, USA has also obtained some biofuel from Diatoms.
He has been working on this since 2006.

Biodiesel from Diatoms

http://www.jawkai.com/

Academician Jawkai Wang is one of the few people working on biodiesel from Diatoms.
The Chinese website can be translated using Google Translate.

Lipids from Algae - Diatoms

Several fundamental biological aspects of Algal Biofuel Application.

Presentation at International Workshop on Offshore Algae Cultivation for Biofuels and Beyond,

by Qiang Hu, Laboratory for Algae Research and Biotechnology, Arizona State University

"To put algae in a global perspective, the algae consists of less than 1% even less than 0.5% of global biomass, however this tiny biomass generates about 40% of our oxygen and removes about 40% of the total carbon dioxide. The small amount of algae in the oceans are doing a great job.'
Pg 32.

What are the oleaginous algae? Basically, any algae which can produce 20% or higher of tryacylglycerol. This is equivalent to oleaginous plants, which also produce 20% oil. What kind of algae can produce that much lipid? In this figure I show total lipid so if you look at cyanobacteria or blue-green algae they produce zero triacylglycerol because they are missing several genes involved in triacylglycerol biosynthesis or at least one critical gene. Also because cyanobacteria are a prokaryotic system and have no internal membrane system to separate triacylglycerol from the rest of the cell bodies. If you look at the marine algae there are many marine unicellular algae which can produce high amounts of triacylglyceryl—total lipid can go up to 50%. In particular, there are many diatoms, including both freshwater and marine species, which produce high amounts of triacylglycerol, similar to green algae.
Pg 34

From the report of the Wind Sea Algae Workshop held in April 2009 at Lolland, Denmark available at http://wind-sea-algae.org/?page_id=305 .

Biodiesel from Diatoms - Lipid content

http://www.jbc.org/content/141/1/283.full.pdf

SUMMARY

1. The lipids of freshly collected marine diatoms contain a very high per cent of free fatty acid, apparently irrespective of species.

2. When a suspension of diatoms is allowed to stand for 6 months, the content of free acids falls markedly, and the content of hydrocarbon may rise.

Biodiesel from Diatoms

This is a photo of a pond in which a good bloom of Diatoms has been caused by using Nualgi. The oil from the diatoms can be seen floating on the surface.

No other input was used.
Diatoms present naturally in the water were allowed to bloom.

Harvesting of algae and extraction of oil are considered very difficult.
If oil from diatoms exits the diatoms on its own and floats up, then these two problems are solved.