Micro-algae cultivation and algae-oil fuel production by enrich CO2 introduction from diesel co-generation system

Abstract

The tri-generation system is the high efficiency of the system which utilizes not only the electricity and heat from an engine co-generation system, but also CO2 in the exhaust gas as a resource for growing plants or micro-algae. In our previous study, we demonstrate the mass production of algal-oil at enriched CO2 aeration under the sunlight condition. In this study, we collected CO2 in the diesel engine exhaust of co-generation system and introduced the enriched CO2 aeration in cultivation of microalgae, Scenedesmus dimorphus, in photo bioreactors. In addition, fuel property of the oil extracted and treated by the super-heated methanol vapor method was analyzed. From the experimental result, it was shown that the aeration of enriched CO2 of diesel engine exhaust is effective to increase algal cell density, and fuel property of FAME produced from microalgae is improved by the super-heated methanol vapor method. Also, it was estimated that the super-heated methanol vapor method is effective to reduce the energy consumption for fuel production.

Keywords

• micro-algae oil
• tri-generation system
• biofuel
• co2