(Notícia em Inglês)
James Liao, professor of chemical and bimolecular engineering at UCLA, has developed an algae process for biorefining that, when compared to current process methods focused on lipid extraction, is just the opposite. Liao, and his team from UCLA published their findings after three years of work, and he explained to Biodiesel Magazine what they found during their research. “Basically,” he said, “we’ve developed a technology that can use protein as a raw material for a biorefinery, and for making biofuels.”
The way people are currently utilizing algae, Liao said, is by artificially starving the algae to induce the strains to produce lipids, which will eventually be extracted and used as oil for biofuels. In this process, Liao explained, the algae species become sick and don’t grow as well or as fast as they otherwise may. “We reasoned that if we could use proteins as a resource instead of lipids,” he said, “we could bypass many of these difficulties.” Liao believes his approach to algae benefits from the fact that certain proteins that cannot be used for food are the main components in photosynthesis and carbon dioxide fixation. “The protein is a machine that harvests the energy that fixates the CO2,” he explained. “So if you want a cell to grow fast, you need the cell to have a lot of proteins. If we want the cell to fixate a lot of CO2, to grow very fast, to fixate a lot of sunlight, the cell needs a lot of proteins to do the job.”
biodieselmagazine.com»
James Liao, professor of chemical and bimolecular engineering at UCLA, has developed an algae process for biorefining that, when compared to current process methods focused on lipid extraction, is just the opposite. Liao, and his team from UCLA published their findings after three years of work, and he explained to Biodiesel Magazine what they found during their research. “Basically,” he said, “we’ve developed a technology that can use protein as a raw material for a biorefinery, and for making biofuels.”
The way people are currently utilizing algae, Liao said, is by artificially starving the algae to induce the strains to produce lipids, which will eventually be extracted and used as oil for biofuels. In this process, Liao explained, the algae species become sick and don’t grow as well or as fast as they otherwise may. “We reasoned that if we could use proteins as a resource instead of lipids,” he said, “we could bypass many of these difficulties.” Liao believes his approach to algae benefits from the fact that certain proteins that cannot be used for food are the main components in photosynthesis and carbon dioxide fixation. “The protein is a machine that harvests the energy that fixates the CO2,” he explained. “So if you want a cell to grow fast, you need the cell to have a lot of proteins. If we want the cell to fixate a lot of CO2, to grow very fast, to fixate a lot of sunlight, the cell needs a lot of proteins to do the job.”
biodieselmagazine.com»