ABO Blog

Sign up for the upcoming Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership (ATP3) workshop, held in Santa Fe, NM on May 16-20, 2016.

Lectures will cover everything from the fundamentals of culture management to operations at production scale. Participants will get the chance to move out of the auditorium to get hands-on experience in the lab.

ATP3 offers superior formal and informal education and training in the use of microalgae as feedstock for biofuels and coproducts, through hands-on learning opportunities, workshops, and seminars held at ATP3 partner sites and selected public events.

Click here for details. 

Algae’s benefits just keep on accruing: it produces fuels, it can purify wastewaters, it consumes CO2, it is nutritious and, it turns out, it is also incredibly strong. Researchers at the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) recently measured this by studying single-celled algae organisms called diatoms. Their more specific focus was on the frustules: the cell walls encasing the diatoms.

The Caltech scientists isolated these frustules and conducted bend tests with them to adjudicate their strength. The result? They discovered that these frustules had the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any known biological materials. As an article in the Independent points out, that means frustules are stronger than bone, teeth or antlers.

For more details, visit the original article here.

Matrix Genetics, a biotechnology company that has developed a method to genetically modify cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), has teamed up with Proterro, a biotechnology company with unique photobioreactor technology, to produce high-value nutritional products from Spirulina.

Spirulina, a type of cyanobacteria, is naturally a nutrient powerhouse: it provides a concentrated source of protein, vitamins and antioxidants with a small amount of healthy fats as well. Matrix has been the first company to successfully harness and increase those characteristics through genetic modification of Spirulina. In fact, Matrix can produce different strains of Spirulina with specific traits depending on the desired output.

This ability teams up wonderfully with Proterro’s photobioreactor system. Proterro’s technology converts the carbon in waste CO2 into valuable products ranging from biochemicals to nutrients and vitamins. More concisely, Matrix’s Spirulina, a photosynthetic strain of cyanobacteria that captures CO2 as it grows, will act as the input in Proterro’s process and will be converted into high-value nutritional products.

Paving the way for commercial-scale production of Spirulina, this partnership represents a big step forward for the algae industry.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have released a study that unveils a new process for producing ethanol from algae. The process, named Combined Algal Processing (CAP), promises to be more effective and affordable. It was published in the Algal Research journal by authors Tao Dong, Eric Knowshaug, Ryan Davis, Lieve Laurens, Stefanie Van Wychen, Philip Pienkos and Nick Nagle.

In work the set the stage for the published study, NREL researchers produced ethanol not just from lipids (the traditional components used to make fuels from algae) but separated out carbohydrates and proteins as well, both of which can be converted into fuel products. While this reduced the cost of increasing the amount of lipids in algae, a large chunk of the carbohydrate sugars were lost when the researchers used a solid-liquid separation process to isolate the carbohydrates.

Fast forward to the current study. The researchers skipped the solid-liquid separation process and exposed all algae components (lipids, carbohydrates and proteins) to the fermentation process. This resulted in a 32 percent greater yield than with lipids alone. The costs were also successfully reduced. Albeit not yet competitive with petroleum, it is a major step in the right direction.

For more information about the study, visit the NREL website.

The California Center for Algae Biotechnology (CalCAB) is hosting their annual symposium March 10, 2016 at UC San Diego, covering the year’s scientific advancements genetics, synthetic biology, engineering, social science, policy and biomanufacturing in photosynthetic organisms.

For the few of you that aren’t already jazzed by the list of topics, the keynote speaker is Margaret McCormick, the CEO of Matrix Genetics, speaking on her work as the head of strategy, research and operations. Other speakers will cover everything from wastewater reclamation to the intense regulations that constrain the electricity markets.

A bonus symposium on plant biology will be held the day after, on March 11.

Read more about the symposium here and more about CalCAB here.