Turning Algae into Biofuel in a Quicker and More Efficient Way

Image credit: lasaa/Pixabay

With increasingly warmer oceans, we should expect to have more algal blooms and see more algae floating on the ocean's surface which would make it somewhat risky to get in the water. However, algae also have benefits to us humans in the form of biofuel.

Despite this though, it takes more time and energy to turn them into fuel so there's no point. Until a group of researchers found a quicker and more efficient way of converting algae into a more eco-friendly source of fuel.

This year, the University of Utah scientists discovered a faster way to turn algae into fuel. Algae is filled with lipids that we can feed our energy-hungry diesel engines. The problem is extracting the lipids, which usually requires more energy to transform than the actual energy we’d get – not achieving what scientists call “energy parity.”

But now, the University of Utah team has discovered a new mix that is more efficient and much faster. We can now extract more power from algae with less waste materials after the fact. 

Paper co-author Dr. Leonard Pease says, “We have removed a significant development barrier to make algal biofuel production more efficient and smarter. Our method puts us much closer to creating biofuels energy parity than we were before.”

By Jeremiah