RIT researchers creating green fuel from algae

Imagine using algae and wastewater to fuel your car. Now imagine that the process of creating fuel cleans the water so significantly that it is fit to send back into Lake Ontario. That is just what researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology envisioned, and their research may someday make it a reality.

The idea came two years ago when Eric Lannan, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at RIT, was thinking about a topic for his master’s thesis.

Lannan and his thesis advisor, professor Ali Ogut, came up with the idea of converting algae into biodiesel fuel.

“I looked into research,” said Lannan. “Once I saw it was somewhat feasible ... that’s kind of where it started.”

From the lab to the tank
Initial testing began in the lab with small-scale studies. Lannan and Jeff Lodge, associate professor  in the biological sciences department at RIT, tested different strains of algae to see which would be most ideal. They also tested the impact of light intensity on algae growth.

In December, Lannan built a tank with a 100-gallon capacity to boost the scale of the project. Lodge and Lannon are now treating 60 to 65 gallons at a time in the tank, located at Environmental Energy Technologies on Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road, where Ogut is company president. The water they use is donated by the Frank E. VanLare Wastewater Treatment Facility in Irondequoit.

The process begins by adding the untreated wastewater to the tank and adding in the algae, which Lodge has previously grown in the lab. The algae strain they use, Scenedesmus, accumulates lipids — used to make biodiesel — at a very high rate, said Lodge. They then provide light and air sources to help the algae grow.

“We just use straight wastewater,” said Lodge. “We add nothing but the algae to it.”
They don’t need to mix in any nutrients, said Lodge, because they already exist in the wastewater. This dramatically cuts down on the cost of growing the algae.

After about a week, Lodge and Lannon pump the algae and water out of the tank and separate out the algae. Once the algae has dried out, they use a chemical reaction to extract the lipids. Another chemical process can be used to convert the lipids to biodiesel fuel.

What they didn’t fully expect was how extensively the algae would clean the wastewater, said Lannan.

“How well it cleans wastewater was kind of a surprise,” he said. “We didn’t realize it would knock nutrient levels down that much, that rapidly.”

The water contains nitrogen, nitrates and phosphorus, all of which must be removed before being put into Lake Ontario.

“Algae uses all three up rapidly,” said Lodge. “When we’re done with the experiment, it’s 99-percent clean.”

Expanding the vision
Lodge and Lannan have their sights set on studying the process on an even larger scale. They are currently discussing with the Irondequoit plant the possibility of studying even larger qualities of water, up to 1,000 gallons, at the plant in the near future.

The plant treats 100 million gallons of water a day, and RIT is only taking a very small portion of that, said Drew Smith, environmental and regulatory compliance manager with Monroe County.

Having done undergraduate research in algae in the 1980’s, Smith said, he had a personal interest in the project.

“I’d like to see where it goes,” he said. “I think there’s a bit of excitement there, anytime you can get into green fueling.”

To complete the biodiesel conversion, Lodge and Lannan are partnering with Northern Biodiesel, located in Ontario, Wayne County.

“We do a lot of this type of work,” said John Vavalo, the company’s senior vice president, with waste, such as cooking oil and animal fats. “Algae looked promising.”

The company has worked with people using algae before, but not with anyone who has also used it to clean wastewater, said Vavalo. RIT’s process, he said, makes it a “two-fold win.”

Vavalo has already worked with RIT to give them some feedback and ideas.

“We’re willing to help anybody doing this work,” he said. “We hope some succeed.”

Looking to the future
There are a lot of commercial biodiesel companies currently using soybean and canola oil to make biodiesel, said Lodge, both of which require farmland to grow the crops.

“Ultimately, what we want to become is a feedstock for other companies,” said Lodge. “We want to create the lipids and send them to them.”

Lodge said he is interested in studying other types of waste, such as manure and industrial waste, to find out the impact algae has on them. He sees this as a golden opportunity to, one day, work with communities, especially those without wastewater plants. Tanks would be simple to build, and not only can their process clean a community’s wastewater, it could also provide biodiesel to fuel the community’s vehicles.

One more benefit, he added, is that biodiesel is much cleaner than petroleum-based diesel.

And he isn’t the only one with the idea. He has been contacted by people from as far away as India and Jamaica who are interested in his research.

Perhaps the most important benefit of the idea is that wastewater is a continuous resource, added Lannan.

“It’s not going anywhere,” he said. “We’re not going to run out of wastewater reserves.”