Making true green power at home

DanDMan

Yes BR Bill, I have been working at this because I need power for my AP system that is off grid. I is going to take me about 4 months to get ready then next spring when it warms up I will be producing my own fuel and I will no longer have an electric bill or a gas/petrol bill. David James is unwilling to tell me what material they use as a catalyst because it is being patented, but he IS willing to sell it to me. This means I can thermally crack the algae oil directly into diesel or gas/petrol that is identical to petroleum based fuels without the need to buy harmful chemicals to break up the oil chains. I am also looking at a bio option using fungus to split the oil via enzymes. When I get prices on the catalyst I will post an update.

http://boilkerala.blogspot.com wrote:

Fungus Makes Biodiesel Indian Researcher's Finding
Ravichandra Potumarthi, a researcher in India, has demonstrated and presented his findings at a conference (the International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology) that using the enzyme lipase as the catalyst he can convert vegetable oils into biodiesel. The trouble, of course, with that, conceptually, is that lipase is a complex protein, difficult and expensive to synthesize. Naturally it would not be a significant breakthrough if Ravichandra did not start thinking "outside the box", so to speak. He saw no reason to go to the trouble of refining the enzyme to a pure form, he simply found an organism that produces plenty of it, and tossed it into the mix. The main advantage here is that you don't have to heat the oil at all for the process to work as in (many, if not most) of the more conventional methods of using methanol (or ethanol) and sodium hydroxide. The mechanism Ravichandra chose was a simple fungus called Metarhizium anisopliae . Interestingly this particular fungus is not all that difficult to obtain at the moment, because it is being investigated as a means to control malaria carrying mosquitoes.(op.cit. Wikipedia.org) It is also already being used as a means to destroy thrips (nasty little things that curl the leaves of citrus trees.

Using open ponds and VERY conservative numbers its possible to get 2000 gallons of oil per acre. In reality its much higher than that using a hearty native strain of algae (Cholorella Sp). This is the most doable free energy I have ever seen! I will be solar powered, but algae is going to be my solar cell and its oil the battery; its waste the fish food. :mrgreen:

For some u-tubing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCk8iBMfblw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aatFZOtedPg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1fdF-3_gAY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tPMikdzH9k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5x12aHPMoU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG5jPo7I8VI Since this vid they have perfected the refining so a 50/50 mixture is no longer needed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZovAIFNh4bM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmhyV4yumAU&feature=related

spiritrancho

I do hope you keep us posted on your results. I now make biodiesel to power my run-around small truck and my large flat bed. I also heat the house with it and plan to heat the AP green house with it. My cost for processing free waste veggie oil is $1.15 per gal. This disregards depreciation on equiment, labor, and collection costs. Also I disregard cost of electric power because I run 4kw of solar and 800watts of wind power.
I pesonally am not interested in the cost and maintenance involved in keeping a generator running 24/7. The maintenance involved in maintaning the solar and wind is not great. last I heard no one had produced usable quanities of biodiesel from algae. The small amounts of oil produced still had to go thru transesterification to become biodiesel.

DanDMan

Count on it!

Cyara

DanDMan wrote:

Normally the catalyst would be aluminum oxide or copper oxide, but he talked about a "special" catalyst. I am going to call the man to see if he can release the details or if they are getting a patent on it. Its a simple process, vaporize the oil and let it vent through a pipe full of metal dust then cool/condense the resulting vapor; the catalyst never gets used up. There is a similar process with the carbon monoxide and steam that comes off wood, when passed over copper oxide you get methanol. Its considered a "commercial" technology, but it's technology over 150 years old and simple enough for anyone that can manage cooking on a camp fire without getting burned. Be sure to check out all the other parts to that video on you tube too. It may be a cheap looking event but they have sine heavy hitters to the algae game there. There is even a video that shows a cheap non toxic way to condense the algae out of water. Up to this point the research has been about getting better strains of algae and there was no good way to harvest the algae. I can go online and order a local algae strain from the university and know what I have. Now, research is finally working on the harvest solution. For home use however I think I can just strain it out of the water using a pump and micro fiber filter bag.

He probably is about to patent it. Be interested to hear too.
Don't you think finding a string algae would be the best. I have seen it some places where you can just pull it out by hand...

Quote:

2000 gallons of oil per acre is a very low estimate and I should be able to make all the oil I need in a few hundred square feet and that's using simple ponds.

It is still a phenomenol return of oil on land size. Much easier to grow than landcrops too.

Quote:

The vertical "reactor" units can increase production per acre many many times; up to 100,000 gallons per acre. However the expense may not be worth it unless you already have a green house and access to the heat welded clear pvc bags like the guy in El Passo; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyoKTbxerpQ (or live in a warm climate).

I would like to see if I could do this.... make a home-made reactor in a GH

Quote:

I like the approach taken in the book. They do not tell you if you can do it economically or not, they just show you how to start simple and see what you get.. I mean, grow algae, strain it out, dry it on a window screen and then smash it in a garlic press and see how much algae oil you get; what could be simpler. Then you know the amount of algae you might need to grow and the amount of oil you can expect. Then you decide if its worth doing. Just skips over all the politics, yea and nay sayers and goes for the proof! Then you move up to using a truck jack with some lumber and cloth to press buckets of oil.

Best way to go... not only cost effective... but learning about your product all the way.

Cyara

DanDMan wrote:

I like the idea of fermenting it for ethanol then pressing it for oil and then feeding the left over protein to the fish. I think that it must be grown separately from the fish. Perhaps use fish water as a partial water change to feed the algae. OR grow fish and algae together while constantly removing the algae from the system, but that risky if you have a algae crash.

Accessing the sugars and then the oil. Interesting.
How much protein in algae? Depends on strain of algae? Depends on feed?
Is there a way to prevent an algae crash? I know it happens when some dies.... and certain bacteria feed on the dead algae producing an anti-biotic that kills off more algae.... and so on.... is why a pond can clear almost overnight. Doing a water change will stop this process.... so maybe that is all it needs to prevent an algae crash?

Cyara

I am very interested in spirulina because of its amazing health benefits. It is a blue-green algae. Would it be suitable for harvesting oil do you think?

RupertofOZ

If you had a "lake" full of it.... :lol:

hygicell

here are two links to sites where you can view patents:

http://www.espacenet.com/access/index.en.htm
where you can choose your language
i.e. English (but many more are available, including a.o. Croatian !)
http://gb.espacenet.com/search97cgi/s97 ... vanced.hts
just fill in and search
then refine your search if too many patents come up

and
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/
same here

unfortunately a search on "david AND james AND algae AND catalyst" so far didn't bring up anything
so I guess it is not publicized yet.

great sites to do your research on whatever subject
will post this again on a new thread in the "useful information" section

greetings

frank

hygicell

careful, everybody:
I have asked some questions on the woodgas forum about gasification of algae
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/WoodGas/

and I have been warned that it might be a scam
comparable to all the sites promoting hydrogen generators
here is the message:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Wood ... sage/13983

I sure hope this is a false alarm, as I am fascinated by the prospect
but better be aware that it is not all gold that shines

frank

DanDMan

Cyara, Protein and oil content varies from strain to strain and yes a stringy strain would be best IF it has high enough oil content and Im not sure the eatable kind has enough oil. In general you are not going to get more than 75% of the oil in the algae out without chemical process so the higher the oil content the better. If you extract all the oil then its not good for animal feed. Oh, when you ferment the algae you can feed the carbon dioxide back to the growing algae..

The gasification of algae and conversion to gas and oil IS real, however I have some bad news. David does not full own the process and now they have decided to sell this technology to oil companies. The are selling mini refineries to everyone else and their cost for the smallest model is $400,000 USD. So again greed takes victory from us all :evil:

They decided to not sell the catalyst. (insert many choice words here). Further, their refinery currently consist of a 12 foot long pipe connected to a heated tank with no safety equipment. Of course as you might have guessed they will not tell me the temp or pressure that are required as that is classified info. Its manual and dangerous.

What I have learned is that its done with pressure and heat and a catalyst all of which are standard industrial processes. Its referred to as thermal thermal depolymerization which is most often carried out at 800F / 426C.

Quote:

Thermal depolymerization (TDP) is a process using hydrous pyrolysis for the reduction of complex organic materials (usually waste products of various sorts, often known as biomass and plastic) into light crude oil. It mimics the natural geological processes thought to be involved in the production of fossil fuels. Under pressure and heat, long chain polymers of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon decompose into short-chain petroleum hydrocarbons with a maximum length of around 18 carbons.

Without the catalyst you have non-condensable vapors that are flammable. It does little good to heat it under pressure unless you use the vapors to directly run a motor. Which brings us to the woodgas gasifier like the FEMA down draft gasifier. That may be the only way to use algae to directly run a motor without using transesterification (lye & methanol). I have hope for the reusable mixed-metal catalyst (an insoluble double metal salt) that can make diesel without heat or chemicals and is regeneratable by heating to 500 F. You could get it in 5 gallon buckets which could process 500 gallons of oil before needing to be regenerated; at the rate of . They also have a sponge like molecular sieve that could remove water from the oil and wick it to the catalyst and was reusable. Now, this is a good second. So I cant make gas/petrol, but I can make diesel. The process looks like this:

DanDMan

Oh, the link to buy the catalyst is here: http://www.survivalunlimited.com/biodiesel.htm

The cost is about $300 USD.
Acusorb® Beads,Hydrous Ion-Adsorption and Diesterification beads For every 30 lbs. of beads you have in your waste oil circuit you will be able to process approximately 8 to 16 gallons per hour. You will have 384 gallons per day maximum flow rate for new or freshly recharged beads. This rate may decrease as the beads get saturated with contaminants. The oil flowing out of the beads should always look clear when you have the flow rate adjusted properly.

Now, I have not tried this approach yet, so I am going to order this catalyst after the first of the year and I will let you know then if this works with algae oil. Oh speaking of algae, they also sell a 3 micron filter bag that may be a good way to separate algae from water.

beanblog

Very interesting stuff. I'll be following this thread to stay posted on your experiments and results!

DanDMan

Oh, just FYI. It takes 11 pounds of dry Cholorella Sp to produce 1 gallon of oil.

BatonRouge Bill

Pressing 7.5 lbs of oil (weight of 1 gal of veggie oil) out of 11 lbs of dry algae would be difficult. I thought that it was at most 40% oil and only in special strains of algae and it only went down from there and only 75% of that was extractable.
(Just the machinist in me trying see the numbers add up and struggling with it.)

Sleepe

Dan

Any idea whether the raw algae oil phase changes, and if it does at what temp?

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Making true green power at home

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