A Killing (and Feeding) Machine for Algae

OriginOil should have called itself Shake and Bake.

The Los Angeles-based company—one of the several start-ups trying to produce oil from algae—is seeking a patent on its process for growing and subsequently harvesting oil from the single-celled buggers with vibrations.

The process, roughly, works like this. Nutrients such as carbon dioxide are injected into the growing medium and then fractured into micron-sized bubbles with ultrasonic waves. Breaking down the nutrients makes the nutrients easier to absorb (just as if you were incapacitated and someone pre-chewed your food for you.). Thus, the algae grow faster.

Then, when it comes time to harvest water and other catalysts in the growing medium and wiggled at a high ultrasonic intensity to crack the organism’s surrounding membrane. When the membrane is cracked, algae floats out of the cell, presumably, and to the top of the water. The oil can then be skimmed off the top of the pond. Death by tiny vibration. I can see the t-shirt now: Kill ‘Em All, and Let the Water Pik Sort it Out.

OriginOil in some sense is more of an equipment company than an oil company in my book. Extracting algae from the water and then extracting the oil from the algae are two vexing problems for algae companies. Some have come up with clever ideas to solve this problem. Solazyme, for instance, doesn’t grow its algae in ponds. It grows it in kettles with sugar. No water, no extraction problem. Synthetic Genomics is working on a way to genetically modify algae so that they membrane will crack easily, or on its own

But many algae companies—are there are at least twenty out there—haven’t solved this problem yet. Some,  judging by discussions with them, think they can get rich by merely getting some desert land and plastic bags. Some of these me-too companies would pay dearly for the OriginOil system.