by gerrelli » Tue May 12, 2009 11:41 pm
There are 20,000 strains of Microphyte (Microalgae). I believe the current catalog stands at 7000 tested for Algae strains although this is off the top of my head. It's unlikely high oil content strains would exist in western countries and are more likely to be thriving in exotic locations as stated earlier in this post. With a closed PBR system it is possible to grow any strain of microalgae. The highest yield I've heard is 30-50%, 30% being offically confirmed.
This is where more research is required, the problem is measuring the lipid (oil) content in a given strain. Techniques such as emulsion testing and Nile dye apparently is the most accessible form. Look around your local area, ponds, swamps, rivers and so on. You may get lucky. It's impossible to say only exotic species have high lipid contents as we have not tested every local strain although it's most likely as the habitat is ideal for growth and evolution of the strain due to nutrients, temperature and so on.
For me part of my research if testing various strains of algae, there's no point in testing strains already documented as this does not contribute to the field. What you should do is setup a incubation tank and try growing different strains. Run strains that have a good doubling rate through a PBR, batch system or other processing system and then measure how much oil you get. A good benchmark would be to use a known high lipid strain and compare against the oil output over a predetermined time in the same reactor or batch system. Be specific.