Biofuels Production From Nonedible Bio-oils

The challenge has been set to meet Navy’s renewable fuel standard using advanced biofuels. Microalgae, along with other future fuel crops, must be aggressively developed now, not later. Recent dramatic demonstrations with algae based biodiesel and biojet show that it is no longer a question of algae being suitable as a natural source of oils that can be refined to produce biofuels. Rather, it is a question of being sustainable with long-term economic viability as algae farming becomes established at large scales. As an elite algae seedstock breeder/manufacturer, Kuehnle AgroSystems’s business is focused upon providing the biomass farmer with high performing, industrially relevant algae species to produce feedstock that meets price points for crude algae oil. In Phase I this project successfully completed a feasibility analysis to produce cost-effective biofuel from Kuehnle AgroSystems algae feedstock using a uniquely scaleable continuous supercritical methanol fuel conversion. In Phase II this project will expand fuel conversion capacity onto an industrial site next to a jetfuel refinery in Hawaii to experimentally demonstrate end-to-end process concepts to produce biofuels and co-products for Navy testing.