Simulated outdoor environments strengthen algal biofuel research

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By Sara Matthews-Kaye

Simulated sunshine and pond water have a Michigan State University lab converted into a manufacturing site. Plant scientists have turned themselves into assembly line workers for the production of an algae photo bioreactor, a laboratory instrument that mimics the outdoor environment, possibly bringing science one step closer to creating a viable algal biofuel industry.

Dubbed the ePBR (environmental photo bioreactor), the tool simulates both sunshine and pond water, and it provides algae researchers a controlled environment to study algae and see which kinds could someday fuel a car.

Picture of Chris Hall, MSU Kramer lab graduate student, taking a sample of algae from an ePBR. Photo: MCH

Certain species of microalgae produce oil, “green crude” to those in the industry, as they grow. Some types can carry up to half their weight in oil. Scientists extract the crude from the algae and convert it into biofuel.

Now researchers want to know which species create the most oil, and the environmental conditions that it needs to do it.

With MSU biophysicist David Kramer and others, algal biologist Benjamin Lucker developed the ePBR to address laboratory challenges he faced several years ago while performing algal biofuel research in the Pacific Northwest.

“I was working as a kind of prospector, isolating species, and working with regional companies,” Lucker said. “And what I realized is that when I would take species back into the lab, I’m growing them in conditions that had no relevance to what they’re being selected for.”

Those conditions include temperature, light, water ph, and carbon dioxide levels – all conditions that the environmental photo bioreactor can control and measure.

The ePBR is a tubular container made from polycarbonate, a light weight and durable hard plastic, and is surrounded by a metal jacket that controls the temperature. The top of the instrument provides light.

“It’s a slice of a pond,” said Mimi Hall, CEO of Phenometrics Inc, the tech company manufacturing and selling the device. The sun is at the top, and the bottom is pond water where the algae sit at the same depth as they would outdoors.

We created a tool to bring the outdoors, indoors, Hall said. It’s a tool that can create baseline scientific conditions for the study of algae. A computer sets the conditions in the container, and other labs can dial those in.

A laboratory’s air quality and room temperature can unintentionally affect the growth of algae and the  study results.  The PBR allows laboratories to create identical growing environments and comparable data.

It’s creating a standard operating platform for algal research, Lucker said.

He and others in the lab have been working around the clock to build 40 environmental photo bioreactors destined for Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Mo.

At Donald Danforth the device will characterize algae strains. That helps study how different types of algae react under the same condition, or how one type reacts under a variety of conditions.

Ivan Baxter, a research computational biologist with the U.S.  Department of Agriculture, and an assistant member and principal investigator at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, is studying how the environment affects the growth and oil content of certain strains.

“The ePBR will make it easier to vary the environment to see algal responses to temperature and light,” Baxtor said. “It creates a tightly controlled environment.”

Lucker believes scientists will now be able to study algae in ways no one has before.

Brian Pflegar, a chemical and biological engineering assistant professor at University of Wisconsin — Madison, sees the potential of restructuring the chemical industry around algal-based chemicals.

“Many things are made from petrochemicals. We need alternative sources for these as well,” Pflegar said.

He works with Cladophora, macroalgae that, thanks to its cellular structure, are more workable than land plants as a biomass source. Cladophora’s cell walls produce sugars that can be converted into fatty acids and then into biofuel.

It’s a different line of study than Baxtor or Lucker, but the goal is the same: renewable energy.

“There are a lot of models for algae’s role in sustainability,” Lucker said.

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  1. Pingback: MSU Researchers Develop E-photobioreactor :Algae Industry Magazine

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