MARG Energy has invented a proprietary process to convert CO2 emissions into algae which is used widely by the fuel, food and pharmaceutical industries. Through this process, the company will help to reduce CO2 emissions by 85%. The Biomass Module designed by the company produces more than 30000 different algae strains from CO2 emitted from […]

A new deal between Cellana, a California-based maker of algae-based products, and Israel’s Galil Algae Cooperative Agriculture Society Limited could have interesting implications for biodiesel (possibly a negative implication here) and for nutraceuticals (really positive here). This Cellana news release says the partnership looks to combine the industrial qualities of Cellana’s ReNew™ Algae – high-value […]

Pierre Durand, an evolutionary biologist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, has been trying to figure out why. In an earlier study with a single-celled algae called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Durand grew cells in the liquid where other cells had previous killed themselves (in response to heat stress). The algae grew faster than usual in […]

A new strain of yellow-green algae, heterococcus sp. DN1, which may prove to be an efficient source for biodiesel, has been discovered in the snow fields of the Rocky Mountains. Research examining this new alga, published in Biotechnology Progress, reveals that H. sp. DN1 was found to grow at temperatures approaching freezing and to accumulate large intracellular stores of […]

Research studies from the Sheba Medical Center @ Israel have revealed that a powdery substance produced by orange algae ( Dunaliella.bardawil) can treat an inherited disease – Retinitis pigmentosa, that causes blindness in children. This disease, until now, was thought to be incurable. Earlier, this was treated rather the intensity somehow slowed down using vitamin […]

Algae algae everywhere! Students from the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Singapore Polytechnic have made concrete slabs with algae. They have found that a mix of algae and cement could be used to make precast drain sections, wall partitions, etc.  With the new regulations in sand exports, the finding will be a real […]

Aurora Algae, a company which produces algae based products, has developed a new technique ‘Homologous recombination’ for genetic optimization to create advanced-trait algae strains for their product development in the pharmaceutical, nutrition, renewable energy and animal feed markets. The technique enables rapid development of optimized strains while retaining the organism’s natural genetic purity and is […]

I recently came across this recent review paper by Ramos et al., on using Dunaliella salina as a model for abiotic stress tolerance and thought it would be an interesting read for all. The paper elaborates on isoprenoid and carotenoid biosynthesis regulation in addition to various genetic transformation procedures that would, in future, help this […]

Came across an interesting page  at the Algae Fuels Community @ CleanTick which discusses the challenges in each part of the algae biofuel value chain. “Deriving fuel from algae is at research stage, and there are some daunting challenges in each part of the fuel production value chain. Energy efficient technologies, easy scalability, maximum utilization […]

I  came across a project at the Algae Fuels Community @ CleanTick and thought I could share this with you as well. Provided below are some highlights  on the properties of the marine algae strain-Nannochloropsis salina which I gathered after going through the details shared by one of the members in the algae fuels community […]

I was reading upon some articles at the algae fuels community @ CleanTick , and my eyes caught upon this page which summarises the efforts purused by various scientists in the area of genetic engineering of algae for fuels. The page is focused on discussing those global research efforts carried out by various research institutes […]

CleanTick is an online cleantech community from the promoters of Oilgae. Cleantick has  recently launched  an online algae fuels community which aims to bring about all the algae fuel professionals, researchers and enthusiasts at one place for focussed discussions, and interactions on  specific topics pertaining to algae fuels. Algae Fuels Community @ CleanTick provides you […]

The recent tsunami and the nuclear after effects have crumbled the whole of Japan.  The fear of nuclear radiation and nuclear spillage struck the whole country and even to the neighbouring Asiatic regions.  The Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration were spreading news during the last week of March that very low levels of […]

The Cambridge, Mass.-based start-up said that it has received a patent for an engineered form of cynobacteria, or blue-green algae, which grows in water and is capable of secreting biodiesel fuel. The company claims that it can make diesel fuel directly using only sunlight and waste carbon dioxide in glass bioreactors for as little as […]

It’s not easy to select the right algae strain  say many scientists and its absolutely true.. It is not just isolating a algae from a natural environment and culturing it and transferring  them into a open-ponds, PBR’s, fermenter or whatever. It is a lot more… According to the DOE, there are three parameters required to […]

Genetic engineering of algae is the talk of the town these days and GE of algae can be done by studying the metabolic pathway of algae species, modifying their genes responsible for the lipid content. The engineered microbes can then be cultivated for oil production. The genetically engineered organism can also be cultivated for producing […]

Foreign genes are being spliced into algae and native genes are being tweaked. Different strains of algae are pitted against one another in survival-of-the-fittest contests in an effort to accelerate the evolution of fast-growing, hardy strains. The goal is nothing less than to create superalgae, highly efficient at converting sunlight and carbon dioxide into lipids […]

Jonathan Zehr, a professor of ocean sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, characterized the microbe as an atypical member of the cyanobacteria, a group of photosynthetic bacteria formerly known as blue-green algae. Still lacking a formal taxonomic classification, it is known only as UCYN-A. First detected in the open ocean near Hawaii in […]

Article by Ronie J. Calugay Among the hundreds of thousands of species of microalgae, a superhero is on the rise — meet Botryococcus braunii! This single-celled superscum which clusters in colonies produces a higher amount of a substance called hydrocarbon, which closely resembles the various contents of crude oil from fossil fuels, than the fatty […]

You are at: Oilgae Blog. In a new study, a team of chemists from the University of Toronto in Canada have observed quantum mechanics at work in photosynthesis in marine algae, which suggests algae knew about quantum mechanics nearly two billion years before humans. “Our latest experiments show that normally functioning biological systems have the […]

You are at: Oilgae Blog. Endicott Biofuels, LLC, a Houston-based, next-generation biodiesel producer, and TransAlgae, Ltd., an algal biotechnology company, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of algae as a potential transportation fuel and renewable chemical feedstock source. TransAlgae’s mission is to develop commercially viable algae strains for a variety of algae […]

You are at: Oilgae Blog. Krishna Niyogi, a biologist with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, led the discovery that an ancient light harvesting protein, LHCSR, functions as a molecular “dimmer switch” that helps prevent green algae from absorbing too much sunlight during photosynthesis and suffering oxidation damage as a consequence. See more By the way, […]

You are at: Oilgae Blog. Minister of Defence Minister Shri AK Antony says The Defence Research Laboratory, (DRL), Tezpur is engaged in R&D work related to Bio-diesel from algae. They seem to have identify four strains which has maximum lipid content upto 40 %, for extraction of Bio-diesel. in a written reply to Shri Pradeep […]

You are at: Oilgae Blog. I came across an interesting article on a commonly found macroalgae – kelp on the Epoch Times. Kelp—the Wonder Plant – This article highlights the various application of kelp.  By the way, have you subscribed to the Oilgae Blog?; How about joining the Oilgae mailing list?; and our forum to […]

You are at: Oilgae Blog. Targeted Growth, one of the leaders in genetic research, is trying to boost the oil content. It has already created versions of cyanobacteria with 20 percent to 40 percent of their mass in lipid. Next year, it hopes to show that it can produce this type of algae in large […]