Researchers creating alternative fuels
Researchers in various departments on campus are working together to create an alternate form of fuel.
While many other universities around the country, such as MIT and Berkley, are working on other angles to create biofuels, USU’s method of using microbes, such as algae, to do so involves a new method.
“We have a unique technology even though other institutions are using algae,” said Byard Wood, dean of the mechanical and aerospace engineering department.
The uniqueness to USU’s project is the solar collector and the way the researchers grow the algae.
“They take a gas that’s one of the bad guys, a greenhouse gas, and they convert is into a compound that it used as a fuel,” said Lance Seefeldt, professor of
chemistry and biochemistry.
The project is just in the beginning stages, but the idea began in 2000.
The federal government funded them in the past, but now USTRI, The Utah Science and Technology Research Initiative, fund the researchers.
To begin the project, they need to build two greenhouses: one smaller, the lab
scale, and one larger, the pilot scale.
“The microbes are just plants and we have to provide a greenhouse, if you will, to grow them,” Wood said. “We’re bringing the sunlight in through fiber optics from a solar collector, and so it really is kind of a really sophisticated greenhouse.”
Since they are just in the beginning stages, neither of the greenhouses have been built yet, but they plan to begin starting in June and then have them finished
within a year or two.
The lab scale will possibly be built on campus in the Innovative Campus Bioscience Building. While the pilot scale’s location has not been determined, it is possible it will be built just east of the American West Heritage Center on the Caine Dairy.
The pilot scale will take approximately one acre of land.
“It can be very modular, so we are building one that can demonstrate the viability of it, but not be too big, because the bigger it is, it will cost more money. So, we figure about an acre size will give us enough information to do all we want to accomplish,” Wood said.
By using a controlled environment, there will be the ability to recycle the carbon dioxide instead of letting it go to waste.
“What it does is it takes the CO2 that’s the greenhouse gas and turns that into the fuel that we’re interested in,” Seefeldt said.
When that fuel then gets burned, it turns back in to CO2, and then the algae can capture that CO2 again and turn it back into fuel, he said.
“What you end up with is a closed cycle. Where the CO2 never actually escapes, you’re consuming it as fast as you’re releasing it,” Seefeldt added.
The researchers are using manure as a source of CO2 and are in the process of making converters, the anaerobic digester for the CO2, and a solar reactor to compress the oils from the algae.
“The CO2 is captured through the anaerobic digester – that’s where the manure goes in,” Wood said. “Once it goes into the anaerobic digester, it compresses, produces to methane and CO2, and CO2 is used for the bioreactor.”
The induced bioreactor is then linked to the solar bioreactor, said Conly Hansen, a nutrition and food scientist.
“That’s what my portion supplies,” Hansen said. “Then the solar bioreactor produces algae – and the algae is up to 50 percent oil – and that oil is oil that can be used for biodiesel.”
The biological and irrigational engineering department is working to link the digester and the reactor together.
“The anaerobic digester is out and operating, but linking the two together, we’re just getting started on that,” Hansen said. The digester will be more than 20 feet high and 10 feet in diameter.
From the converters, the algae will produce a liquid material, which will become a fairly clear and dilute fuel, Hansen said.
But all of this is just an idea. Each department – engineering, biochemistry and biological engineering – is working toward specific areas to make the project work.
“That’s why the team approach is critical, because no one of us could probably work on a project this large and get it to work all the way from the beginning to the end,” Seefeldt said.
“My contribution on this, being the biochemist, is to work on understanding the micro-organism, the algae and how they convert the carbon dioxide into the
oils,” Seefeldt said.
After they create the lab scale and the pilot scale and have worked through the process a few times, the researchers plan on marketing to different cities and states around the nation as well as different countries around the world.
“Our goal is to make the technological breakthroughs, and then obviously the technology would then be be something that other people could use as well,”
Seefeldt said.
Wood added, “”I think it represents an opportunity to have a major impact on reducing emissions and providing a renewable source of fuel. It helps get away from foreign oil.”
Other forms of biofuel being used today are helpful, but there is not enough farmland in the country to displace a fraction of the amount of fuel used today, said Seefeldt.
“The technology we’re looking into would be a second generation fuel that would use a lot less space and wouldn’t require Iowa farmland or Nebraska farmland. It could be something that you could do in the Utah deserts,” Seefeldt added.
Hansen disagrees that one of the greenhouses would be placed in the middle of a desert.
“I think it would be more likely that it would be in an agricultural area that would be like a desert,” Hansen said. “What would be more likely is it would be in a place like central Utah where there’s not much water.”
The project is just beginning, but the departments are working toward their goal.
“We feel like we’ve got the human capital capacity to move forward,” Wood said. “We’ll have the experimental facilities in a few months, so we’re just waiting for a lot of exciting research to come down the road. “
-ranaebang@cc.usu.edu