Algae oil grown in continous photobioreactor.

[youngunbd]

if a few miracles occur and maybe a pig flies over head I could be in production. I would love to be selling fuel by august but I appear to be a lazy bum and don't follow my own deadlines as well as I need to

I'm working on it! haha

 

[andytk5]

I definitely second young on the WVO biodiesel processor. Can be done pretty cheap and still well built with great results.

 

[youngunbd]

Another recommendation for if you decide to produce your own Bio diesel, is to research dry washing. Everything I have seen has shown that it just produces a top notch quality product, the towers can be made by an afternoon date with a metal roller and a welder.

An update on my algae tank, I gotta get back in and patch the leaks today, I need to refresh five of my five gallon containers to get them in a bloom state to prepare them to be put in to my 1800 gallon tank. I will add the last 700 gallons today after patching the holes in the bottom, and creating a few more heh

I will try and get a few pictures of it unless I just freeze my ass off again

 

[andytk5]

How did it go man? Did you fix your leak? I have my tank placed on a footing and have a small pump that I will use. Like you said depending on the strain my flowrate may need to be lower than some high gph pump. I'm almost wondering about some kind of enclosed/covered raceway that the water can flow thru instead of tubes? I would be able to remove the top and clean anything if needed. I could make them wide and shallow so more algae is exposed to sunlighjt(if needed).

 

[youngunbd]

Well i fixed the leaks, then proceeded to put the last 700 gallons of water in. Well when we built it, we used heavy duty brackets, lag screws, washers, all the good stuff.... appearently on one corner, we forgot to reinforce the part that the brackets bolted to... well lets just say, if i had waited around 30 seconds longer, i would have ridden a 1200 gallon wave out the front door of my shed!


so i have it all unbolted now, everything is now reinforced with 4x4's and 4x6's, bigger bolts.... and more duck tape!

just gotta put it all back together and this rain is definitely not helping


and it may not exactly be the speed of the pump, some of the algae that have flagella just wont survive being pumped, those are types where you need a raceway with a paddlewheel instead of a pump

I dont want to use closed off tanks yet, just because i like to have unrestricted movement until i get all of the processes down and repeatable

 

[youngunbd]

ok, the tank is back in place. This is the hokiest thing i have ever built, and that showed when it burst.... so its a little less hokey now!!

just gotta water proof it again then refill, the algae is ready to go from its small 30 gallons up to the full 1800 gallon containers once its ready!

I spent more than an hour trying to explain to people how all this works the other day and i have to say a few minds were blown!!

 

[andytk5]

Man, sounds like a serious mess you had there. It will be worth it though. Talking about the paddlewheel vs pump situation, your algae strain is up to the pressures of being pumped? I think we talked about the idea of using diafram pumps vs impeller pumps etc.. I know the diaframs are a little gentler then the impeller ones.

 

[youngunbd]

well the two algae strains have their differences. One is a max of 5 microns, one is 50 microns. the 50 micron one has flagella which are how they move around in liquid, the small one has no flagella but it does like to latch on to the large one for movement and they feed each other.... reminds me that i need to find that university study, its somewhere here on my pc

my impeller pump wont harm the algae supposedly. my tank burst before i got any algae in it lol

If i was going to use both algaes in the same tank then i would need to fab up a paddlewheel and probably a shallower tank. if the algae you choose is a bit delicate, then maybe a diaphragm pump is in order

 

[youngunbd]

Here's a bit of an update. The tank is all rebuilt, 1200 gallons of water in it right now, about 30 gallons of algae and now I wait! It would have 1800 gallons of water but I have no faith in my construction! I'll post a picture of it soon, even though I have said that many times already

 

[andytk5]

pure champion stuff young! Look forward to some pics. I am currently inundated with some deuce IP issues, 12v Elec setup and a small oil leak on the M1009 seemingly from the oil pan gasket.. Fml.. But all doable fixes and cheap, just time.. What is your projected yield in gallons of oil? I'm sure like mine this is an experiment with future scalability in mind.

 

[youngunbd]

One guy who did an experiment in a 300 gallon trough got a 10:1 ratio per week. Meaning he had 30 gallons of algae oil in a week. I can only hope for something similar!

Scalabilty for me means moving up to 20-30 thousand gallon tanks so i am excited!!

 

[youngunbd]

Well I didn feel like doing work in English class so here we go, I will take a few better ones when i get home

Also, even though its large and square and holds 1800 gallons of water, the algae does get the light it needs, I have a few tricks for that one! The tank took all of a few days to figure out, the lighting, air, movement, filtering, processing is the bulk of the pain in my bottom!

 

[chevyCUCV]

Update?

 

[youngunbd]

I got the roof off the shed to allow light in, have tarps ready to cover it incase of bad weather. Haha **** tank still leaks like a sieve so I bring the water level up once a week or so.

I finally got some semi professional help with wiring up my processing rig. Keep in mind, I'm the type of guy that when someone see's me working on a project, they are more likely to cover their privates, and shield their eyes in preparation for something to go horribly wrong!

So now that the processor is wired up properly, I am not as worried about it anymore.

The last thing to do is to get my filter rig set up, then just grow more and more algae and see what I can do!

Someone hinted at the possibility of the oil from the algae having correct enough chemical properties to be put directly in the tank and it will run properly without all of the problems that WVO would give a diesel pick-up

After this whole project, I should be able to trademark the phrase, I'm working on it!

 

[andytk5]

Haha!!!!! That's funny man. Safety glasses and Cup in hand I guess? Yeah I'm kinda the same way I just lucky, sometimes...

Thanks for the pics! I see now how the tanks are so large from what you said earlier. They use a whole shed, very cool.

Speaking of wiring, I need a source for some 1/2-3/4hp 120V elec motors that I can use lovejoy couplings to mate small block chevy oil pumps to to make gear pumps. I was trying to take a clearwater pump apart but can't get the impeller off the shaft so I just left it alone to be my waste oil filtering setup for oil, atf, old diesel etc..

I need this so my centrifuge will get higher than 40psi which is all the clearwater pump puts out...

 

[youngunbd]

I keep running tests with my processing rig. I did learn the power of the capacitors that are in my power supply... ouch... haha

I really won't know what works best until I get to talk to the science folk at school and I need to get it under a micro scope so I can see the effects the processor has on it.



The idea behind the tanks is to do all my testing now, then get a larger plastic tank (a real one!) And to just supersize all of my findings on the real tank.

I'm not sure of your wiring issues. The extent of my electrical knowledge consists of hooking things up, maybe use a multi meter and hope for the best!

 

[andytk5]

Well I just bit the bullet and ordered a gear pump since I was only saving $50 by finding the right motor and then fitting the correct gear pump head to it..

I will use my chevy oil pump hooked up to my Mutt starter motor for a collection pump.

The gear pump/cetrifuge will now filter the junk out of my wmo and wvo saving $$ on all the replacement filters I was/would be buying.

Would the centrifuge do anything on seperating the oil after the algae has matured and been harvested?

 

[youngunbd]

Centrifuges will separate oil from algae, but not nearly all of it, and it will be backwards in energy production relative to the amount of oil you would get out.

Keep in mind, you gotta grow a lot of algae, and get every drop of oil for this to be worth the effort haha