The Bullseye Fuel: BAL and its macroalgae-based biofuels

Biofuels Digest
Jim Lane December 29, 2011

In Chile earlier this month, Bio Architecture Lab broke ground on an experimental pilot facility producing ethanol from Macrocystis pyrifera (macro algae).

Macroalgae: that’s seaweed, and more about why macro algae is really, really important, in a moment.

The Pilot Facility
The facility, expected to be operational in 2012 will allow the company to demonstrate a complete value chain from feedstock cultivation (seaweed farming) to advanced biofuel production; the company expects to scale-up by the end of 2015. BAL currently operates three seaweed farms in Quenac and Ancud in the Los Lagos region, and Caldera in the Atacama region of Chile.

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New technology to produce biodiesel with oleic algae

FIS
CHILE
Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Researchers from the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering of the University of Concepción (UdeC), based in Chillán, will begin a project that focuses on the cultivation of oleic microalgae for the manufacture of biofuels tomorrow.

According to Jose Fernando Reyes, academic and director of technology and research at UdeC, this is "a project whose concept does not exist in Chile at this time."

The initiative 'Development of high conversion reactor for microalgae cultivation and oleic biodiesel production' is funded by Innova Bío Bío of the Corporation for the Promotion of Production (Corfo), the Regional Industrial Development Corporation of Bío Bío (Cidere Bío Bío) and the Institute for Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship (ITE). The total project cost will exceed CLP 300 million (USD 600,000)

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