South African Biodiversity Media
Running on Algae
A paper by CSIR researchers, Dheepak Maharajh and Asha Harilal named ‘Transforming South Africa’s Biodiversity into Diesel’ has taken us one step closer to a future where we could be running on algae.
The paper presented the isolation of beneficial organisms and the best organisms from that potential in the biomass process. Currently biodiesel production and research are focused on crop based feedstock, such as palm oil. Researchers and stakeholders in the field are concerned that these biomass products could become unsustainable in the long term due to arable land and water requirements – not to mention the competition with food crops.
Algae has shown great potential in being the possible solution, as 40% can be harvested as fuel according to Maharajh;
“Algae generally grow at lower densities than bacteria or yeast, but their growth rates are far superior to terrestrial plants. These masses are specific to the organisms capability to produce oil. Eg, to produce 1 litre of fuel from an algae that produced 40% oil we would require 2.5kg of dry algal biomass, which could be as much as 2500L of liquid culture”
Microalgae have an oil yield at least 10 times better than oil seed crops and are capable of using environmental waste substrates such as carbon dioxide and nitrate-rich waste water for growth. For the last three years CSIR researchers have been actively sampling South Africa’s biodiversity and have successfully obtained over 200 isolates.
Full Article: southafricanbiodiversity.co.za/biodiversity/550-running-o...
Running on Algae
A paper by CSIR researchers, Dheepak Maharajh and Asha Harilal named ‘Transforming South Africa’s Biodiversity into Diesel’ has taken us one step closer to a future where we could be running on algae.
The paper presented the isolation of beneficial organisms and the best organisms from that potential in the biomass process. Currently biodiesel production and research are focused on crop based feedstock, such as palm oil. Researchers and stakeholders in the field are concerned that these biomass products could become unsustainable in the long term due to arable land and water requirements – not to mention the competition with food crops.
Algae has shown great potential in being the possible solution, as 40% can be harvested as fuel according to Maharajh;
“Algae generally grow at lower densities than bacteria or yeast, but their growth rates are far superior to terrestrial plants. These masses are specific to the organisms capability to produce oil. Eg, to produce 1 litre of fuel from an algae that produced 40% oil we would require 2.5kg of dry algal biomass, which could be as much as 2500L of liquid culture”
Microalgae have an oil yield at least 10 times better than oil seed crops and are capable of using environmental waste substrates such as carbon dioxide and nitrate-rich waste water for growth. For the last three years CSIR researchers have been actively sampling South Africa’s biodiversity and have successfully obtained over 200 isolates.
Full Article: southafricanbiodiversity.co.za/biodiversity/550-running-o...