pressure concept for extraction

[moosepsc]

Has anyone done any work with pressure... i know a lot of people have presses ... but what i am thinking is a press similar to a meat grinder...a steel plate with very fine hole in it and the algea would be pressured through the plate.. if the holes are smaller then the algea cell it would say to me that it would break the cell wall. What are your thoughts on this ? In theory you could use the pressure from a holding tank to be the pressure..

[cacofonix]

Hi,

Interesting idea...but where do you see your idea being better than the expeller press? In terms of cost perhaps?

I have not heard of anyone using this, but your idea or a small modification to it should work, I mean algae oil extraction is not exactly rocket science!

[DR Johansen]

In fact what you are describing IS an expeller press. It generally uses a screw to pressurize your feed stock and put it thru a cage of propoer sized holes. At least that is what is looks like to me. Look for "expeller press" in wikipedia.

[cacofonix]

DR...I'm not so sure that what he is saying and an expeller press are one and the same...int he case of an expeller press, the algae are crushed using a screw-type mechanism, and the oil seeps out through the holes.

I think what has been mentioned by moosepsc is a way by which algae are pressed between holes and if the algal cells are larger than the holes, they break and release the oil...I am not really sure how this works or whether this is any better, but I think this is different from an expeller

[jdr007]

I am having trouble with extracting the oil out of Algae. you are talking about a press, but do you not have to dry the algae first? If you do have to dry the algae; then how do you get the same amount of energy out of the biodiesel produced from the oil that you put in? Also how is the dried algae economical? I am doing research at the University of Arkansas in this area of studies, but I am having a really hard time finding information about the extraction of the lipids.