Autralian MBD orders OriginalOil process control system.

Los Angeles, CA (USA) – August 18, 2011

The worldwide race to develop production control systems for the production of biofuels from 3rd generation micro-algae is hotting up! OriginOil, Inc., of Los Angeles, California, the developer of a breakthrough technology to extract oil from algae and an emerging leader in the global algae oil services industry, announced  on 12th August that it recently received an increased order now totalling $850k for a large-scale algae extraction system from MBD Energy, Ltd. (“MBD”), a leading Australian solutions provider in the field of industrial CO₂ waste management.

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The new system on order is one of the largest next-generation extraction systems of its kind in the world. (See diagram attached). The equipment is expected to process up to 1100 liters (300 gallons) per minute of algae culture continuously, enough to process the daily harvest at MBD’s upcoming one-hectare site at Queensland’s Tarong power station. According to MBD, the one-hectare facility will use the power station’s CO₂-laden flue-gas to feed a Bio-CCS (Bio-based Carbon Capture and Storage) Algal Synthesizer. It will serve as proof of concept for a larger, second stage facility of up to 80 hectares (197 acres) before being progressively expanded to a much larger third stage facility.

MBD is regarded as being at the forefront of solutions for stationary industrial emitters such as power stations, smelters and refineries – that securely and efficiently recycles captured flue-gas emissions into oil-rich algal biomass via proprietary systems. It has recently patented a real-time control network to supervise continuous algae harvesting operations at very large algae production sites.

Code-named Green Stick in research (see diagram) the network will be installed at Australian algae producer MBD Energy’s power plant test site. There it will connect with MBD’s own growth control system to integrate operations with OriginOil’s Single Step Extraction technology as well as downstream concentration and separation processes. OriginOil recently filed for patent protection of the new control technology, which aims to simplify the complex task of computerising an intelligent control system.

According to the company, the process of measuring and controlling the interactions critical to large-scale algal production, including algae growth, dewatering, flocculation, cell lysing and oil recovery, has so far been accomplished with little automation. It says this only becomes necessary once systems become sufficiently developed and are ready for continuous flow operations at commercial scale.

In France, researchers from the GEPEA have also been working on the complete production process from engineering in the culture receptacles, (bioreactor or photobioreactor) right through to the processes for the separation to revoer the components. At international level, thirty odd layers of algae of the 30 to 50,000 already described are the focus of the research effort.

See to-morrow's article for the next chapter!

Original article by Brigitte Bornemann, adapted by Christopher Longmore.

Sources: MBD, and OriginOil