Algal Biomass Production via Open Pond Algae Farm Cultivation: 2019 State of Technology and Future Research

Research output: NRELTechnical Report

Abstract

NREL’s algae state of technology benchmarking efforts focus both on front-end algal biomass production and separately on back-end conversion to fuels through NREL’s “combined algae processing” (CAP) pathway. The production model is based on outdoor long-term cultivation data, enabled by comprehensive algal biomass production trials conducted under Development of Integrated Screening, Cultivar Optimization, and Verification Research (DISCOVR) consortium efforts, driven by data furnished by Arizona State University (ASU) at the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation (AzCATI) testbed site. The CAP model is based on experimental efforts conducted under NREL R&D projects. This report focuses on front-end algal biomass production, documenting the pertinent algal biomass cultivation parameters that were input to the NREL open pond algae farm model and reports on key process sustainability indicators for the biomass production stage including annual biomass yields, facility power demand, and water consumption.
Original languageAmerican English
Number of pages32
StatePublished - 2020

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/TP-5100-76569

Keywords

  • algae
  • algal biomass
  • cultivation performance
  • DISCOVR
  • open pond
  • process sustainability indicators

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