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TECHNOLOGY

Biomass contributes to about 14% of the total energy produced worldwide. India, being a tropical country, has tremendous potential for energy generation through biomass and its residues. Biomass energy is normally produced from firewood, agricultural residues such as bagasse, crop stalks, animal dung and wastes generated from agro-based industries. Due to the uncertainty in availability of these biomass sources energy projects are failing to achieve target production. Micro algae provide a concrete solution for this problem by the guaranteed supply of required biomass at a cheaper rate.

After many years of research we have developed open trough bioreactor system which avoids the demerits of both closed photo bioreactor and open ponds.First we developed the grow out and harvesting system and then identified the species of micro algae

suitable for the system. Our bioreactor simulates the higher plant leaf. There is a top layer of photosynthetic region and bottom gas exchange and nutrient region. The microalgae cells are flashed to the photosynthetic region with predefined intervals. This will enhance the optimum utilization of light and reduce photoinhibition. Our algae harvesting system 'HYDROPHOBIC CELL ESCALATION' is a milking process. There will be 3-5 harvests per day depending upon the cell density.

The features of this system

Durable for more than 50 years. Cheaper construction cost. Scalable to thousands of hectors. Sea water is used for the culture and the requirement is for initial filling only and there after for evaporation loss. In built harvesting mechanism which can be fully automated. Biomass production achieved up to 40gm/sq m/day. Cheaper production cost. Low gestation period for the project.

The harvested algae biomass is sun dried to a moisture content of <10%. Dried biomass is either go to the extractor or to the gasifier. The path way for different energy products are as shown below.

ENERGY PRODUCTION

GASIFIER

Gasifiers are devices used for converting solid fuel into gaseous fuel. In biomass systems, the process is also referred to as pyrolitic distillation. Gasification is a process that converts carbonaceous materials, such as coal, petroleum, biofuel, or biomass, into syngas (synthesis gas) by reacting the raw material at high temperatures with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam. Gasification is a method for extracting energy from many different types of organic materials. The advantage of gasification is that, using the syngas is potentially more efficient than direct combustion of the original fuel because it can be combusted at higher temperatures, so that the thermodynamic upper limit to the efficiency defined by Carnot's rule is higher or not applicable.

Syngas is a gas mixture that contains varying amounts of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and very often some carbon dioxide. The name comes from their use as intermediates in creating synthetic natural gas (SNG). Syngas is also used as an intermediate in producing synthetic diesel via Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and the Mobil methanol to gasoline. Syngas is combustible and often used as a fuel source or as an intermediate for the production of fuels, chemicals, fertilizer, methanol, synthetic natural gas or other industrial gases.

Gasification of wood, biomass and agricultural waste is currently widely used on industrial scales to generate electricity. Among different type of gasifiers, fluidized bed gasifier is ideal for algae biomass because it never restrict a wet feed stock.

Application of solar thermal in gasifier is a great fit with algae culture. Terrestrial biomass will not be available in desert conditions but algae can.

Syngas is used either in a steam generator or in a gas turbine generator to produce electricity.

Syngas is steam reformed to produce pure industrial Hydrogen.

EXTRACTOR

The algae biomass is sent to the oil extractor (mechanical and solvent) to separate the algae oil. The algae oil is transesterified to produce biodiesel. The spent biomass is rich in carbohydrate and protein. This is used either for the production of bio ethanol or used to make high quality animal feed.

CO2 MITIGATION

Technology is same as detailed above. The co2 captured from the flue gas is used as the carbon source. 5% CO2 ( as per Kyoto agreement) from the emission is captured and utilized for the biomass production.