Ames Lab, Iowa State, Catilin announce micralgae oil extraction breakthrough: continuous harvest of oil without killing cell: potential yield of 10,000 gallons per acre

In Iowa, researchers at the Ames Laboratory, in collaboration with a team from Iowa State University, said that they had developed what they called a “nanofarming” technique to continuously harvest oil from microalgae while leaving the organisms intact. All previously techniques to extract algae oil involved killing the cell.

The group has partnered with bioenergy developer Catilin on R&D and marketing planning. The group is supported by an $885,000 grant from the DOE, $216,000 from Catilin and $16,000 from Iowa State University. The partners say that continuous oil extraction allows them to generate up to 10,000 gallons of oil per year per acre of land utilized for algae production.

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