Hi there to all,

I have a consulting firm in Bogota, Colombia and am studying the possibility
of cultivating (closed/photobioreactors, not open ponds) micro-algae for biomass
& biodiesel and have been reading all the info I can find online and am skeptical.

Just about everything I read indicates that commecial production is still 2-3 years away,

but I have encountered and seen the Dutch company BioKing's page: www.bioking.nl / www.algaefuels.org & www.algaelink.com (all the same company)
Which claim to be selling 1-100 ton per day photobioreactors

 Naturally, I wanted to know what other people know and think about this.

 And perhaps help me answer this question? Is commercial production/cultivation for biodiesel near?

 THANK YOU SO MUCH for your assistance!!!

A

A,

Many people believe it is possible.  There have been some minor demonstrations.  No one has produced large quantities in an independently verified production run.  Aquaflow did have a bureaucrat drive a car fueled with B5 from algae.

Many of us here are committed to the open sourvce idea.  We will be glad to pass on what we learn.  Please let us know what your results are.

Algalink (also called Bioking) has a lab scale bioreactor for sale.  They have built a prototype in Portugal.  It looks like thay are building a different prototype in the Netherlands.  I assume the large scale units they advertise are vaporware. 

A,

Welcome to the forum.

Algae units currently available, such as Algaelink and Firefox, are priced to reflect the market availablity of bioreactors - nobody else is selling them so lets rip off anyone wanting to buy one. Many other companies are just simply scams, so be cautious.

As Liberty says, nobody has published supportable meaningfull results in sustainable commercial quantities as yet.

You will either have to build your own designed PBR as I, and several others on this forum, are doing, or wait patiently until those of us working in the field can publish supported results.

In the interim I encourage you to get on the web and search - biodiesel, biofuels, algae, oilgae and many many many more sites that have kept me busy and entertained for hours and hours over the last year. Fascinating stuff.

Hey Slippery and Bobby,

 Many thanks for posting... and sorry about the delay replying.

 I´ve been in the process of speaking with Bioking, and although they take a while
to reply sometimes, they´ve been pretty helpful with information.

 The biggest problem i´ve found so far (besides their prices) is the quantity of
nutrients that are required, such as 2.8 tons of Co2 per day for the 10 ton per day PBR...

I´ll keep you guys posted with updates or novelties, and I hope you guys do the same

Thanks and take care

 A

A,

Did you feel that Algaelink"s claims were legitimate. They are very proud! $98,000.00 to test?

Thanks,

DC