Gary Anderson thinks there’s more to algae than meets the eye.
When he lists products that might one day be made from algae, he includes pharmaceuticals, hydrogen to power vehicles, protein-rich livestock feed and clothing dyes.
With more than 30,000 species of algae, the possibilities seem almost endless for Anderson, a professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering at South Dakota State University.
It will be a challenge to decide which of the many options to pursue, he added.
“Only time will tell which things are going to pan out. That’s a bridge that we haven’t crossed yet.”
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He said his research could provide a way for farmers to make money from the liquid slurry and gases produced in intensive livestock operations.
Anderson wants to develop a method to feed those gases and liquids into an industrial scale bioreactor where algae would be grown. The algae could then be processed into the products on his list, if the price was attractive to buyers.
Carbon dioxide and ammonia drawn from the air of intensive livestock barns could feed the algae by bubbling it up through the solution, he said. Algae also flourish on urea and nitrates.
Anderson said solids from the liquid slurry would be strained off and the liquid fed into the bioreactor, which would be a closed chamber where ideal conditions would be maintained for algae growth.
One of his main challenges is to create an environment inside the bioreactor that best supports algae growth. He needs to find the right balance of light, oxygen and nutrients, which is where his work is focused.
“How do you balance all those factors against each other?”
For example, fluorescent lights are energy efficient but not all the wavelengths in that light are used by algae in photosynthesis. Other kinds of lighting better support photosynthesis but they cost more.
Finding the right blend of oxygen and nutrients is also important because algae can quickly flourish in an abundance of nutrients but then become starved and die off, resulting in odour problems.
Anderson said some algae are as rich in protein as soybeans.
Other algae have high levels of omega 3 fatty acids, shown to be beneficial for heart health. It’s possible that algae rich in omega 3 fatty acids could be fed to cattle or hogs and that the meat would have an added health benefit to consumers, Anderson said.
“You could eat a pork chop to lower your cholesterol.”
While interest in hydrogen energy is increasing in the United States, Anderson has not begun to study methods to efficiently produce and extract hydrogen on a commercial scale.
“Test tubes are great, but you’re not going to power the world on five millilitres of hydrogen or something.”
He began his research in 1999 and said it is difficult to predict when it will result in something that could be used on a commercial scale at an intensive livestock operation. The program depends on the availability of research funding, which means some of the breakthroughs may come later rather than sooner.
