Pre-conference Workshop: How to Accelerate the Commercialization of Biofuels 

Low-Cost Photobioreactors for Production of Algae-Biofuels

Dr. Bryan Willson, Chief Technology Officer, Solix Biofuels; Director, Clean Energy Supercluster, Solix Biofuels/Colorado State University

Closed photobioreactors (PBRs) facilitate the cultivation of specific strains of algae and allow optimal growth conditions to be maintained. To date, however, the high capital and operating costs of PBRs have prohibited their use for “low-valued” products such as biofuels. Since its founding in 2006, Solix Biofuels has maintained a sustained effort to develop low-cost, high-productivity PBRs. Three generations of PBRs have been developed, each with successively higher productivity, lower capital cost, lower operating cost, and lower energy utilization. Key design details and a performance summary of generation are presented. Extensive process modeling and economic projections have been performed. Increasing efforts are now being devoted to reducing the costs of downstream processing: harvesting, dewatering, oil extraction, and co-product processing. The driving biological factors, design rationale, modeling results, and projected product costs will be discussed. Solix has now begun construction of a large-scale production facility in southwest Colorado, on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation; relevant technology details of this expansion facility will be presented.


Benefits:
1. Comparison of open vs. closed production techniques for algae
2. Principles of light management
3. Implementation example: The Solix photobioreactor technology
4. Downstream processing: Harvesting and oil extraction
5. Overview of production economics

Speaker Bio:
Dr. Bryan Willson is Director of the Clean Energy Supercluster at Colorado State University (CSU), is founder and Director of CSU's Engines & Energy Conversion Laboratory, and is a professor of Mechanical Engineering. He is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Solix Biofuels (developer of algae-based biofuels) and is co-founder of Envirofit International (non-profit corporation that disseminates clean technology in the developing world) and Solix Biofuels. He teaches in the areas of design, systems modeling, internal combustion engines, energy, and sustainable development. He has funded over 350 graduate and undergraduate students and is author or co-author of over 200 journal papers, conference proceedings, or technical reports.