Technology:
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Producing
biofuel from algae
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A
research team led by Hideki Kanda of Nagoya University developed a technology to
extract biofuel of algae by a half amount of energy needed by the existing
technology. The new technology eliminates the process to dry and smash algae. At
present, it is necessary to dry algae and smash cells using chemicals in order
to extract fuel from them. Because the two processes cost much, the new
technology has overcome another problem for practical
application.
The
new technology adds dimethyl ether to the culture solution of algae, while applying
pressure on it. Dimethyl ether enters into algal cells, combines with biofuel, and
goes out of them. Biofuel can be separated easily from dimethyl ether by drying
the dimethyl ether containing biofuel at several tens of degrees of centigrade using
waste heat from plants. The dimethyl ether can be used repeatedly for the
extraction of biofuel by liquefying it. The research team confirmed that the
new technology can be applied to various kinds of algae. It plans to ally with
companies for practical application.
The bright future algae build
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