Looking At Algae To Produce Av Fuel

Seambiotic USA, a company working to develop and produce marine microalgae for the nutraceutical and biofuel industries, has entered into an agreement with NASA's Glenn Research Center to develop an on-going collaborative research and development program for optimization of open-pond microalgae growth processes.

"Under a Space Act Agreement, NASA is partnering with Seambiotic USA to model growth processes for microalgae for use as aviation biofuel feedstock," said Professor Ami Ben-Amotz, chief scientific adviser to Seambiotic. "The goal of the agreement is to make use of NASA's expertise in large-scale computational modeling and combine it with Seambiotic's biological process modeling to make advances in biomass process cost reduction."

The journal Bass Drill reports that under the agreement, NASA Glenn and Seambiotic USA will work together to improve production processes and to study and qualify algae oil from alternative species and production processes as candidate aviation fuel at NASA's test facilities.

Seambiotic was founded in 2003 with an objective to grow and process marine micro algae using a ecologically based environmental system. For the last five years, Seambiotic has carried out R&D pilot study comprising about a 1,000 meter square of ponds at the power plant of the Israeli Electric Corporation in Ashkelon.

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.seambiotic.com