BioDieselNow - Renewable biodiesel fuel

Hi would like to collect some of the algal blooms at my local dam... see link (http://www.harties-today.com/hartbeespoort-water.html) Would this stuff be suitable to make biodiesel (for my own personal consumption only... not for large quantities... I'm talking 100 litres a month). If it is suitable... would I just get a press, dry the algae out first, then press the oil out, and follow standard 'sunflower oil' mixing method? Or is it a little more involved? Thanks

Franknstein:

    algal blooms at my local dam... see link (http://www.harties-today.com/hartbeespoort-water.html) Would this stuff be suitable to make biodiesel (for my own personal consumption only... not for large quantities... I'm talking 100 litres a month). If it is suitable... would I just get a press, dry the algae out first, then press the oil out, and follow standard 'sunflower oil' mixing method? Or is it a little more involved? Thanks

That stuff is likely dangerous. You shouldnt be messing with it unless you know what you are doing. This can be toxic stuff, not only the alga itself but the water.

It is likely very low oil%. And not all oil is the same so the oil itself is unrelyable at best. Also, depending on season and cycles, the spp will not be the same and so calc's wont be easy. 

Lets imagine you can somehow get 100% dry algae to begin with and can somehow extract 5%, just for fun with math;

1ac = 43560 cuft/ac of water x 7.5gal/cuft x 3.8l/gal = 1.25m liters potential.  Lets imagine 1gram/liter/week x 52weeks/yr. 65m g/ac/yr. of algae green solids.    x .05% extraction     /28g/oz    /16oz/lb    /7lbs/gal =  103gallons of fuel.

You want 100 liters/month = 1200l x .26gal/l = 312gal of fuel need.

Thus... you need to collect 3 acres of dam water. And you will somehow need to collect 218tons of dry weight algae. If the algae is at 2% solids on collection... you will need to process 11000tons of material to get your 100l/month of fuel. And you will need to dry 11000tons of material thruout the year.

Thanks Froggy. Great info, scary math!

Anyone else have another opinion?

 Also, whats so bad about the toxicity? I wont be drinking the stuff, just using it for fuel, hell If I had to I would wear a raincoat and Wellington boots, and catch it with a large net at the back of my speedboat.

 Is it possible that its toxic in the form of airborne particles or something? I was at this dam yesterday (which gave me the idea)... and there were tonnes of people jetskiing and skiing in that water. I am not disagreeing with you, I know its toxic, I am just trying to gauge how that would affect the experiment... would it render the oil useless or something? Or affect the chemistry?

Franknstein:

 Is it possible that its toxic in the form of airborne particles or something? I was at this dam yesterday (which gave me the idea)... and there were tonnes of people jetskiing and skiing in that water. I am not disagreeing with you, I know its toxic, I am just trying to gauge how that would affect the experiment... would it render the oil useless or something? Or affect the chemistry?

You wont know unless you test it which will cost big $'s. But are you going to be the first one to try it?

One solution to this is to go to the local university algae lab and get ahold of someone that knows how to ID and where to find local flora literature. Once you know what you are dealing with, you can answer your questions better.

I do know that most Anaerobic systems dont take fresh algae mass b/c of toxicity issues. And yes it can become airborne. And yes some of it is so toxic that you only need a few micrograms and ur puking a lung and turning as green as your feedstock. And yes the water can retain some of those toxins after the alga has been removed.

By the way... did you happen to get a whiff of the material? My guess is that by the time the first 2 minutes of trying to collect this stuff, you will soon realize the odor power of decomp. and move on to sweeter smelling pastures. Maybe farming Lavender would be easier?

I wont touch this one  here because i dont want to get into another pissing match with froggy

 you can go to our website and then email me and ill try to answer your questions.

marc

Hi Frankie from an ex kaapenaar. I have skied that water. Algae blooms in some dams can be lethal depending on the catchment area and what is being farmed in that area. At best it  will make you very ill. Will make the results of last nights "Mother in Laws Tongue" seem like ice cream.

You probably will need to talk to your local water board who will have a better idea of what species is forming the bloom at any one time. Once you know that you can look it up on the www and check it's viablity as a potential extraction candidate.

Then you will need to convince the board that it is a good idea to allow you, and not them, to harvest the stuff. Good luck on that one. Got lots of loose cash lying around???

If you get over that hurdle then you are going to need to set up a harvesting system, either land based, or on a vessel. I recommend you google DAF /Dissolved Air Floatation - probably going to be the easiest to use fitted onto a flat barge. For the quantities you are looking at you should be able to make a small system with a small 1hp compressor quite cheaply. - Probably one that you can just hang overboard, and skim the algae as it comes to the surface.

Then you have a bunch of wet algae and we come to another fork in the road. Nobody has come up with the ideal, cost effective, environmentally friendly system of extracting algae oil yet.

You can dry it, push it through the tightest fitting expeller you can find and you might get 50% of the oil. Labs use hexane to get all the oil out but hexane is dangerous and is made from dinooil.

The energy expended in harvesting, drying, pressing, extracting and distilling/ recovering the hexane for 100litres a month is probably going to leave you out of pocket - so why bother.

Maybe you need to build a bigger business plan and if the algae has potential, go to the water board and tell them you will rid the dam of all algae and go into commercial production.