Browse by Category

News

Features

LPG Industry

Magazine

Algae Autogas to Fuel Vehicles

The Directfuel consortium, a four-year £3.1m EU-funded project that involves academic and industrial partners from Europe and the US, aims to genetically modify algae to emit lpg using special enzymes. The lp gas would then be collected and compressed in the normal way.

The algae would be grown in industrial bioreactors exposed to sunlight and would not compete for space with food crops or need harvesting, unlike most biofuels. The objective of the DirectFuel project is to develop photosynthetic microorganisms that catalyse solar energy and carbon dioxide to produce engine ready fuels. A key objective it that the process should not require destructive extraction or further chemical conversion to generate the fuel.

To further increase the chances of success, DirectFuel only tried to produce existing ecofriendly fuels, and chose ethylene, ethane and propane.

Principal investigator Patrik Jones from Turun Yliopisto university in Finland said: “You have the potential to have very high efficiencies, but it’s theoretical at the moment.” By the end of the four year project, the group hopes to demonstrate a working 300 litre photobioreactor prototype. The reactor is being developed by Photon Systems Instruments in the Czech Republic.

David Lleys from partner University of Manchester said: “There could be cars driving on the road with propane from algae in about 10 years time.”

You must be logged in to post a comment.