Illuminating algae Stripping the costs of algae production in PBRs

Dr Douglas McKenzie Xanthella Ltd Cambridge 2014

Academia to Business

XANTHELLA

Xanthella

Xanthella is developing innovative products and services aimed at accelerating the development and reducing the cost of producing algae as feedstocks for industrial products and as solutions to problems. Our customers are people and organisations who want to grow or use algae.

First products are the Pandora family of internally-lit, PBRs. This work was enabled through SMART Scotland and TSB awards to Xanthella. Currently commercialising Cyclops PBR and developing larger Pandora systems.

Algal solutions

Industry problems

Academia

Scale Cost Time

What’s the problem?

Climate

change

Cheap Oil has passed

Pricing instability

Fuel supply insecurity

Rising costs in

Agriculture and transport

Q: Where is the solution?

A: Renewable energy sources at

scale that are price comparable to

fossil fuels, carbon neutral and can

be delivered within this decade.

Hydro; wind, wave, tidal; biomass CHP

AD; fuel cells; solar PV; nuclear

Batteries; hydrogen; biofuels

Electricity Liquid Fuels

Requirements of 3rd generation

biofuels US military

Scale

No or modest impact on other industrial processes (particularly agriculture)

Cost equivalence with fossil fuels (including CAPEX)

Security of supply

Drop in fuel requiring little or no engine modification

High performance (at least equivalenct to fossil fuels)

Major commercial opportunity: also some prospects on green front

especially in civil aviation

the pain Algal feedstocks too expensive for commodity production which limits “real world” applications of algal products to high value products. Algal ponds are relatively cheap but have poor land use efficiencies and have major issues with productivity, contamination and harvesting. GMO No-No! Photobioreactors (PBRs) are much more efficient than ponds but are more expensive to build and operate PBRs offer scope for considerable improvements in cost effectiveness. No standardisation of design meaning market is open to innovative designs. Existing markets for PBRs outside of biofuel production

how to reduce the pain of cost

Capital costs: CAPEX; Operational costs: OPEX.

(CAPEX creates an asset; OPEX is immediate hit on profit and loss

1: Effects of scale on both CAPEX and OPEX

2: Architecture:

simple is good

3: Materials:

Inexpensive is good

Smart is good

4: Operational cost effectiveness:

Low feedstock cost

High efficiency in production

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OPEX

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CAPEX

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effects of scale

Needs of algal biomass

350,000 litres of water for 1000 litre

of algal oil (pond): (10,000 – 100,000l PBR)

1.8 tonnes CO2 for 1 tonne of algal biomass

500 MWh of white light for 1000l AO

Depends on species and fate

of biomass

Large scale is……large!

500 MW coal fired power station produces

around 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per day

So needs to produce around 5,500 tonnes of

algae per day to completely sequester CO2

This requires 2,750,000 MWh of white light

(The coal plant produces 12,000 MWh per day

of electricity)

In Brittany solar insolation is 5kWh/m2 per day

in August

So would require ~300,000,000 m2 of light

gathering surface = 300 km2 (in August!)

Water requirement > 6 million litres per day

BUT: you would get a lot

of oil back: (assume

50% oil content) ~3,000

tonnes per day

(200,000,000 tonnes per

annum EU: so about

0.5%)

Appropriate Local Scale

Annadale will produce 225 tonnes of CO2 per annum

from fermentation and 625 tonnes) from heating.

Needs about 500 tonnes of algae to sequester

Produces around ~300,000 l of algal oil : which is

more than distillery uses in heating oil (225,000l)

Requires ~5 million litres of water The distillery will

produce 3.4 million litres of waste water so most met

from the waste waters. Some of the water can be

recycled so the process is not likely to require

additional water input.

The waste water will provide sufficient nutrients to

support the algal growth.

150,000 MWh of energy: 150,000 m2.

All requirements can be met at site

effects of scale

Scale increases CAPEX risk also OPEX risk

Tipping points where different technology is required for scale up and

feedstocks become limited increasing cost through acquisition of transport.

Large scale demands solar.

Modular can give you scale savings in manufacture lots of small units rather

than few very large units – OPEX savings possible as well easy to predict

behaviour and intervention easy. Easy to relocate and produce pseudo

continuous production by staggering production.

One size will not fit all so flexibility important in PBR design

“the times they are a changing”

Lessons from US fossil oil production

algal diversification Interest in algae as a source of drop-in biofuel has been responsible for an multi-billion dollar explosion in research and commercial activity globally into the production of algal biomass. Tight play technology has reduced strategic demand for biofuels. Algal biomass can be also be used as feedstock for a wide range of products including pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, research tools, pigments, plastics as well as biofuels. The existing markets for these products has been estimated at €4 billion per annum. Biofuel companies adapt to look at these markets as they cannot make money from biofuel production and investor sentiment changes. Scale requirements significantly less, making PBRs more competitive and powered light more desirable

Distributed production of algal biofuels by

electricity?

architecture

architecture

Light is key as it is the feedstock that is ultimately limiting in a production system. In many PBR designs the necessity to capture light imparts a large surface area to the PBR and thus cost. Volume of light capture PBR may be 30x higher than necessary. Light capture PBRs introduce problems of over heating; photo-inhibition in early stage cultures; over-engineered for low density culture stages. If light capture could be separated from light delivery in a cost effective manner then PBR architecture could use familiar, low cost vessels.

Principle of gas lift reactors

Gas sparger

Gas bubbles

Fluid flow

Fluid surface

Traditional gas

lift PBR

Lighting external to PBR; requires large surface area; problems with fouling of PBR internal surface and loss of energy transfer efficiency

Xanthella’s PBR

concept

Lighting internal to PBR: either from light guides or internal LEDs; only uplift tube lit;

high energy transfer efficiency; PBR can have small surface area. Uplift tube made from the

lighting and sparger elements (Goldilocks Component) Simplifies design considerably

and reduces costs. Temperature control via gas sparging

Mk 1 15 l and Cyclops PBRs

Zeus Light Controller

Flexible and waterproof LED light sheet

materials

Smart wall materials for solar reactor: Light processing to optimise photosynthesis Auto reflection to prevent overheating Gas exchange through wall Powered lighting LED efficiency increasing rapidly and costs falling Most cost effective solutions may be not be most efficient for photosynthesis Different wavelengths of light used to control algal and contaminant behaviour

sol

Lots of energy but energy density low; half of wavelengths wasted; problems of IR and UV). Requires high surface areas to capture light leading to poor surface to volume ratios (about 30X excess volume required)

Light processing and transmission

Problems of solar is relatively weak power to area ratio, angular momentum; wrong wavelengths

Newtonian optics too expensive and inefficient for concentration, transmission and processing. Non-linear methods can intercept light and change its momentum and wavelengths. Energy losses but 50% to play with. Would allow separation of light capture from light delivery thus reducing costs: Apollo Net concept. Recently successful in TSB competition: £200K project with St Andrews to develop light processing methods. Further TSB project with Strathclyde on using light to control contamination within PBRs.

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Conclusions

1: The feedstocks necessary for algal production are more likely to be

available locally when the output requirement is modest

2: While large scale plants may produce economies of scale over smaller

ones, these may be wiped out by the need to transport feedstocks onto the

plant site. Financial risk increases with scale

3: Smaller plants easier to physically accommodate and thus less likely to

be resisted from NIMBYism

4: Because of diverse requirements, modular PBRs may offer advantages

over larger scale bespoke PBR systems.

5: Light processing and transmission can offer significant advantages in

cost effectiveness through improved architecture

6: High value products make artificial light much more competitive and can

lead to further cost reductions in both CAPEX and OPEX

Thank You

www.xanthella.co.uk