Hi all,
I have been looking around the internet to check in on some trends and had come across your thread.
In short, I am a Cost Accountant for XXXXXX Biosciences which grows, extracts, and refines algae for multiple applications. There are certain things that I can not disclose, but I will do my best to help out.
For the question, what is the most cost effective means of extraction.
A friolex based extraction in short is the most cost effective. Where the Broth is introduced to a chemical in which the cell wall bursts mearly from the chemical. My question for you is where are you getting you algae from? If you are banking on ocean based and harvesting it from tides ect, you will need to find the oil content within the cells. Next you will need to consider the amount of oil you are able to recover from the cells (you WILL NOT be able to recover more than 90%) please consider that there are many companies in this scene, each trying to find the bug that keeps on growing. We for instance have over 15,000 bugs and the worlds leading fermentation experts...Granted that we are FDA regulated plays into higher costs that I view, but overall I do not think that we (the world community) are not to far away from developing lower extraction costs.
Back to the 60-70% solvent problem, you will need to run this through a sting of evaporators.
Sweet concept on the brine shrimp...!
regarding % recovery you have a long way to go with that number... Also, when you consider recovery % it is not based on biomass to crude/finished oils... You need to have an HEL% or the % of oil in the cells(avg) then after the extraction, measure the potency again, multiplying against the total quantity biomass and crude respectivly and your good.
I plan on using a centrifuge on my oil after I separate it. I have done about 20 hours of research on the subject of extraction and it's really hard to find anything on the subject.
- You need a decantor centrifuge, you are dealing with three biproducts of extraction, Biomass, oil, water. The centrifuge will create oil water mixture with much less recovery due to looses of product going out the door with your biomass lets say 5-8% oil(burn it and you have a biofuel(biomass) power plant,

did I say that)
Hopes this helps guys.
I may be an accountant but I really love this stuff! I plan on keeping around the forums so I will see everyone around!