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Harnessing the biofuel power of algae

New research at Michigan State University has the potential to create a biofuel source produced by algae.

Plant researcher Danny Ducat tells Brownfield certain algae bacteria can capture more solar energy, using less land and water than other biofuel sources.  “Our cyanobacterial strain is capable of producing lots of sugar, potentially more effectively than say sugar cane would be, however it’s producing it in a very different way.”

He says the next step in the research is to find a way to capitalize on the algae’s sugar production, but there are a number of other functions that could be produced from the same bacteria.  “In one reiteration you might take the cyanobacteria and pair it with a yeast as we have done in our recent paper in order to produce the biofuel ethanol.  In other contexts you might take the same cyanobacteria and pair it with a bioplastic producing microbe.”

Ducat says creating flexible communities of microbes would not only produce large amounts of sugar, but also could be used in several other ways.

AUDIO: Interview with Danny Ducat