11 Oct 09 Commercial Fuel From Algae Still Years Away
chrnb sends along this quote from a report at Reuters: "Filling your vehicle's tank with fuel made from algae is still as much as a decade away, as the emerging industry faces a series of hurdles to find an economical way to make the biofuel commercially. Estimates on a timeline for a commercial product, and profits, vary from two to 10 years or more. Executives and industry players who gathered at the Algae Biomass Summit this week in San Diego said they need to push for breakthroughs along the entire chain — from identifying the best organisms to developing efficient harvesting methods. ... So far on the list: finding the right strain of algae among thousands of species that will produce high yields; designing systems where the desired algae can multiply and other species don't invade and disrupt the process; and extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: commercial fuel, designing systems, biofuel, mdash, algae, ayers, hurdles, reuters, timeline, 10 years, lt, profits, decade, san diego, summit, tank, side products
28 Nov 09 Algae Could Be the Key To Ultra-Thin Batteries
MikeChino writes "Algae is often touted as the next big thing in biofuels, but the slimy stuff could also be the key to paper-thin biodegradable batteries, according to researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden. Uppsala researcher Maria Stromme and her team has found that the smelly algae species that clumps on beaches, known as cladophora, can also be used to make a type of cellulose that has 100 times the surface area of cellulose found in paper. That means it can hold enough conducting polymers to effectively recharge and hold electricity for long amounts of time. Eventually, the bio batteries could compete with commercial lithium-ion batteries."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: university in sweden, stromme, uppsala university in sweden, biofuels, clumps, cellulose, algae, surface area, lithium, polymers, batteries, researcher, electricity, beaches
