Tuesday, November 10, 2009 - 9:00 AM
S23
The Solix Approach to Low-Cost Photobioreactor-Based Production of Biofuels from Microalgae
Joel Butler, VP Research & Development, Solix Biofuels, 430B North College Avenue, Fort Collins, CO 80524
Closed photobioreactors (PBRs) facilitate the cultivation of specific strains of algae and allow optimal growth conditions to be maintained. To date, however, the high capital and operating costs of photobioreactors have prohibited their use for “low-valued” products such as biofuels. Since its founding in 2006, Solix Biofuels has maintained a sustained effort to develop low-cost, high-productivity photobioreactors. Three generations of PBRs have been developed, each with successively higher productivity, lower capital cost, lower operating cost, and lower energy utilization. Extensive process modeling and economic projections have been performed. Increasing efforts are now being devoted to reducing the costs of downstream processing: harvesting, dewatering, oil extraction, and co-product processing. The driving biological factors, design rationale, modeling results, and projected product costs will be discussed. Solix is now nearing completion of a large-scale production facility in southwest Colorado, on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation; an overview of this expansion will be presented.
See more of Practices, challenges and trends in large-scale commodity fermentation and harvest
See more of Invited Oral Papers
See more of RAFT VIII (November 8 - 11, 2009)
See more of Invited Oral Papers
See more of RAFT VIII (November 8 - 11, 2009)