Aqueous Algae Oil Extraction

Algal oil is an excellent precursor for commercial production of renewable chemicals and materials with >70% greenhouse gas reduction compared to petroleum-derived counterparts. The objective of this project is to develop a low cost, low energy use process for separating algal oil from algal biomass. A novel approach for extraction of the oil from the biomass in an aqueous solution is proposed. This approach eliminates the need to dry the biomass prior to extraction, and greatly reduces the separation energy, complexity, and cost of algae oil extraction. In Phase I, the new process will be optimized and demonstrated on algae grown at one of Global Algaeĺs open pond cultivation facilities. A parametric study to optimize the process will be conducted at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Global Algae will implement the optimized process at bench-scale to produce algal oil samples. A portion of oil will be converted to polyurethanes by two different processes, one by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and one by Algenesis. Algal oil is a good precursor for polyurethane production, including non-isocyanate polyurethane, but its use has been limited to very high value uses with the oil produced heterotrophically because lower cost photosynthetic algal oil is not available. Global Algae Innovations has previously developed cultivation and harvesting technology to produce lower cost algal biomass that with 50% oil; however, a low-cost, low energy method of extracting the oil is not available yet. Successful development of the proposed aqueous algal oil extraction process would enable use of algal oil as a precursor for many renewable chemicals.