Talk:CH391L/S13/Algal Biofuels
From OpenWetWare
Jump to navigationJump to search
- Kevin Baldridge 16:49, 18 March 2013 (EDT):What are you referring to with "photosynthetic efficiency"? You say sugarcane is the best, but algae actually have more energy per mass. So what is the final product which you are comparing, simple sugars which can be converted to alcoholic biofuels?
- Gabriel Wu 17:12, 18 March 2013 (EDT): Agreed. You're comparing sugar content in corn and sugarcane to lipid production in algae, but you compare them directly. This could use some further clarification.
- Catherine I. Mortensen 16:57, 18 March 2013 (EDT): Is it possible to somehow use chlorella that already exists in the ocean to produce fuel?
- Aurko Dasgupta 17:42, 18 March 2013 (EDT): I doubt that ocean algae consistently grows in a concentration high enough to justify the energy required to power the extraction. They're also wild, so they're not as optimized for any specific feature of biofuel production.
- Gabriel Wu 17:17, 18 March 2013 (EDT): Can you cover a little more of the molecular biology? How are algae actually genetically engineered to improve lipid content? Which pathways are targeted and is there heterologous expression of genes to optimize these pathways?
- Max E. Rubinson 11:25, 21 March 2013 (EDT): I think maybe you should also include a discussion of how strains with truncated light-harvesting antenna are engineered? This paper describes how the Melis lab generated strains of green algae that exhibit a truncated Chl antenna.
- Jeffrey E. Barrick 22:53, 20 March 2013 (EDT):People often mention "red tide" when talking about algal biofuels. A possible danger of growing large vats of algae is that they may produce toxic compounds. Did you encounter that in any of the articles?
- Yunle Huang 10:04, 21 March 2013 (EDT):How are the biofuels actually collected? Are the cells just lysed, or is there an extraction method that keeps the cells alive?
- Dwight Tyler Fields 12:59, 21 March 2013 (EDT):You might also want to include a "Future of Algal Biofuels" section that gives current scientific opinion on the future viability of the field. I'm finding a mostly negative outlook, ex: [1]
