| START Conference Manager |
Growing Native Microalgae in Waste Water for Use in Biodiesel Production Zach Davidson, Brian Keefe, Scott Grayburn, and Gabriel Holbrook Abstract As petroleum fuel prices continue to rise and natural oil reserves run out, the importance of alternative fuels has risen dramatically. The search for feedstocks for these fuels has led to many possible candidates from corn oil to trap grease. One of these feedstocks that has emerged is algae. The production of algae does not have many of the problems faced by other possible feedstocks such as land use and depletion of food production. Algae is also beneficial in that it is able to use wastewater (effluent) as its main source of nutrients and as a byproduct “clean up” the wastewater by removing most, if not all of the major inorganic pollutants (NO3- and PO4-3) which are otherwise discharged into rivers. Results from Hach tests for inorganic pollutant indicated bulk growth of Ankistrodesmus sp. in local wastewater has the potential to reduce the inorganic pollutants to negligible amounts. Further evidence obtained from Soxhlet extractions of Ankistrodesmus sp. showed a 20% - 49% lipid content which pointed toward the ability to use microalgae as biofuel feedstocks for biodiesel production.
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START Conference Manager (V2.61.0 - Rev. 2250)