SBIR Phase I: Continuous Flow Fixed-bed Biodiesel Production from Algae Oil

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is to develop a highly energy efficient, high throughput continuous flow fixed-bed reactor technology for cost-effective algae oil biodiesel production. Algae oil has emerged as one of the most promising sources for mass biodiesel production to replace all transportation fuel in the U.S. A large amount of algae oil will be available in the near future for biodiesel production. However, the current commercial biodiesel production process - a homogeneous catalyst based transesterification process - has not changed much in the last two decades and is far from being efficient. In addition to the significant capital costs required for this homogeneous alkali-catalyzed process, the neutralization and washing processes, along with the production of waste water, are energy and labor intensive and not environmentally friendly. To meet the mass algae oil production demand and achieve the algae biodiesel economy, a new highly energy efficient and high throughput biodiesel production process needs to be developed. In Phase I, research will focus on evaluating the algae oil composition, optimizing the fixed-bed reactor configuration and operating conditions, producing ASTM D6751 standard biodiesel, and proving the technical feasibility. The successful application of this technology to algae oil biodiesel production will significantly increase biodiesel productivity, simplify product separation and purification, improve glycerin quality, eliminate the washing step and associated waste stream, and reduce the plant size and capital costs. This will, in turn, lead to the replacement of the low-efficiency homogeneous catalyst biodiesel production process with a highly efficient fixed-bed heterogeneous catalytic process for algae oil biodiesel production, expedite the substitution of petroleum diesel with domestically produced alternative fuel, decrease energy consumption and its associated environmental impact, reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil imports, and enable the U.S. transportation industry to sustain a strong, competitive position in domestic and world markets. This technology will be commercialized in our company. Additionally, we will license it to biodiesel producers or plant developers to make it available to the entire biodiesel industry. With collaborations with the largest biodiesel companies in the U.S., this technology will be commercialized within three years.