Demonstration of integrated and sustainable enclosed raceway and photobioreactor microalgae cultivation with biodiesel production and validation

Objective

The project will demonstrate an integrated approach to generate biofuels from algae in a sustainable manner, on an industrial scale. The project will make optimum use of glycerol, a waste material arising from biodiesel production. It will integrate prior high quality research which has been undertaken at national and international levels: both with public support and with private finance. The demonstration and associated demonstration activities to be undertaken in this work will help to enable increased security of energy supply for European Transport needs and greater penetration of Renewable Energy Resources (RES) as part of the drive to meet the European Commissions (EC) 20:20:20 objectives.

The project will optimise the production of algae by both heterotrophic and phototrophic routes and will demonstrate integration of these production technologies (Raceway, PBR and Fermentation) to achieve the algae cultivation targets of 90-120 dry tonnes per hectare by annum. Accordingly, strain selection will be governed by the growth rate, oil yield and lipid composition achieved under local conditions.

The project will select algae species and cultivation technologies to attain an algal oil with a suitable lipid profile for biodiesel production and will validate this selection through conversion of the extracted oil into biodiesel to meet standard specifications.

The sustainability of this demonstration, in terms of both economic and environmental (closed carbon loop) implications will be considered across the whole process; including optimum use of algal biomass resources to enable commercialisation.

This project will closely address the requirements of Topic ENERGY.2010.3.4-1 aligning it to the wider European requirements recognised by the EC; to increase security of energy supply, specifically for transport use that can be readily integrated into existing vehicles and infrastructures from indigenous sources and, to help to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

• engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy
• natural sciences biological sciences microbiology phycology
• natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules lipids
• engineering and technology industrial biotechnology biomaterials biofuels
• engineering and technology industrial biotechnology bioprocessing technologies fermentation

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

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Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

• FP7-ENERGY - Specific Programme "Cooperation": Energy

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

• ENERGY.2010.3.4-1 - Biofuels from algae

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-ENERGY-2010-2
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

CP - Collaborative project (generic)

Coordinator

Participants (10)