Research project: Electrolytic Engineering Approaches to Harvest Algae for Liquid Biofuels
Test flights have shown that Bio fuels are a viable replacement for current crude oil derived fuels. One of the current constraints of producing a viable quantity of bio fuel from algae is the rate of separation of the algae from water. Current extraction processes contribute approximately 20-40% to the considerable cost premium of bio fuels making it the most expensive production process step. The US Air Force paid around $59/gallon for algae biofuels in 2012, as compared with $4/gallon for fossil-fuel derived jet-fuel.