UT Receives Grant to Build Algae Biofuels Research Facility
A research and development facility for algae biofuels will soon be built on The University of Toledo Scott Park Campus for Energy and Innovation.
The pilot-scale facility is part of a research project recently awarded a nearly $3 million grant through the Ohio Third Frontier Wright Projects Program that links research capabilities of Ohio’s colleges, universities and nonprofit research institutions with the needs of industry in the state.
Ohio University and UT are leading the three-year Center for Algal Engineering Research and Commercialization project that has a dozen collaborators, including many Ohio businesses involved in the energy industry.
For UT’s part, the half-acre facility at Scott Park will be constructed to include open ponds, ponds in a greenhouse and enclosed photobioreactors to test efficiency of a variety of growth systems. The facility will also have pilot-scale “downstream processing” capabilities where the algae materials could be converted to fuel a complete system, said Dr. Sridhar Viamajala, UT assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering and a principal investigator of the project.
