Los Alamos technology strikes a chord with algal Bbiofuels

Award-winning acoustic focusing technology will help create ?green gold?. Los Alamos, New Mexico, September 2, 2009—An award-winning Los Alamos National Laboratory sound-wave technology is helping Solix Biofuels, Inc. optimize production of algae-based fuel in a cost-effective, scalable, and environmentally benign fashion—paving the way to lowering the carbon footprint of biofuel production. Algae innards contain a high concentration of lipids, or oils. These lipids can be extracted by a relatively simple chemical process and concentrated into "biocrude"—or "green gold"—an alternative to crude oil that can be refined into biodiesel, gasoline, or even jet fuel. Acoustic-focusing—the novel use of sound waves at the heart of the Los Alamos Acoustic Flow Cytometer, a 2007 R&D100 Award-winning technology—is being harnessed and commercialized in partnership with Solix to harvest algae for fuel. The work is part of a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) between the Laboratory and Solix.