After Solazyme’s delivery of 1500 gallons of oil to the US navy,many companies in the US have started pursuing the fermentation route- “the dark fermentation route” to produce biofuels. In fact, one thing what I noticed with Solazyme is the fact that they are not only trying to produce biofuels,\u00a0 but are also trying other high-value products. So when such a option is considered, the fermentation route might be the way to go.\u00a0 However, many scientists claim that this wont work and this doesn’t capture the carbon-dioxide from the air as its carbon source from the sugars.<\/p>\n
As you might be all aware that fermentation\u00a0 is a biochemical process wherein sugar acts as a carbon-source, instead of sunlight and carbon- dioxide. The fermentation technology is about a century old and it\u2019s a well \u2013established technique. Interestingly, growing algae in the absence of light is a far more simplified\u00a0 process . Research studies and some algae- company\u00a0 data reveals claim that algae grown in the dark can reach densities that are 1,000 times higher than strains of photo-autotrophic algae that are grown in the light.\u00a0 In short, one concentrated tank of heterotrophic algae is equivalent to growing 1000 tanks of photo-autotrophic algae.<\/p>\n
Now here are the advantages of fermentation over photosynthesis:<\/p>\n
Access to a wide variety of biomass feedstock such as sugar cane, sugar cane waste (bagasse), energy grass, woodchips or other cellulosic material which can be produced at scale and in high yield.<\/p>\n
Ability to tailor the product for a variety of diesel and aviation-fuel needs.<\/p>\n
Reduced exposure to fluctuations in the price of vegetable oils.<\/p>\n
Biodiesel produced from sustainable feedstock via the fermentation of sugars will offer the potential to deliver greenhouse gas emissions reductions of up to 80-90% when compared to conventional fossil fuel.<\/p>\n
Fermentation technology is a century old and is well-established. Hence, existing infrastructure ( large fermentation vats, biorefineries) will help a great deal in making this process viable.\u00a0 As per Solazyme ‘s and a few other companys\u00a0 claims this is the best route to puruse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After Solazyme’s delivery of 1500 gallons of oil to the US navy,many companies in the US have started pursuing the fermentation route- “the dark fermentation route” to produce biofuels. In fact, one thing what I noticed with Solazyme is the fact that they are not only trying to produce biofuels,\u00a0 but are also trying other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[647,102,109,110],"class_list":["post-2052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-algae-cultivation-biofuel","tag-algae","tag-biofuels","tag-fermentation","tag-photosynthesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2052"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2056,"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2052\/revisions\/2056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.oilgae.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}