Solazyme, Inc. makes renewable oils and other bioproducts. The company’s proprietary technology uses highly optimized microalgae in an industrial fermentation process to transform a growing range of abundant plant-based sugars into high-value triglyceride oils and other bioproducts.
Solazyme’s process is compatible with commercial-scale and widely available fermentation equipment. Solazyme’s pilot plant in South San Francisco, as a result of work performed under ARV-10-047, has recovery operations capable of handling material from both 600- and 1,000-liter fermenters. These pilot plant modifications have enabled the company to produce samples of its algae oils to test new process conditions at an intermediate scale and more easily scale up to larger fermentation vessels. Solazyme has scaled up its technology platform, operating at the lab (5-15 liter), pilot (600-1,000 liter), demonstration (120,000 liters), and commercial (approximately 500,000 liters and above) fermentation scale.
In this project, we successfully designed and configured a pilot scale oil production facility to demonstrate a process for producing renewable algae oil using a California sugar beet feedstock via an algal fermentation process. The renewable algae oil produced in this pilot plant was converted to renewable diesel that meets American Society for Testing and Materials D975 Grade 2 Ultra Low Sulfur Grade specifications. This algal-derived renewable diesel was tested in diesel engines to evaluate its engine emissions and efficiency. The engine testing data generated positive air emissions and fuel consumption data.
Solazyme conducted a Field-to-Wheels Life Cycle Analysis of the sugar beet to algae oil to renewable diesel pathway, evaluating the carbon intensity of the entire process from cultivation of the sugar beet feedstock through the production and testing of the algal-derived renewable diesel. The Life Cycle Analysis showed this process has a lower carbon footprint than the lifecycle of petroleum-based diesel.
When designing and configuring the pilot scale oil production facility, the company evaluated the potential for designing a production facility, leveraging the conversion of an idled corn ethanol plant. This evaluation determined that conversion of a corn ethanol plant to an algae oil production plant would not be an optimal model; however, the evaluation and the project results did conclude that there is sufficient impetus to evaluate other possible co-located production facilities for generating cleaner burning, lower greenhouse gas footprint, and domestically produced fuel
Author(s)
Helen Gibson, Stephen Decker, Gayle McKenzie, Jill Kauffman Johnson, Ana Echaniz
