Advancing Marine Microalgae Biofuel to Commercialisation

Project overview

Lead Organisation
Muradel Pty Ltd
Location
Whyalla, South Australia
Western Australia
ARENA Program
Emerging Renewables Program
Start date
30 January 2013
End date
18 June 2016
Project Partners
None
This bioenergy project was completed on 18 June 2016.

Summary

Australia and the broader global community are searching for viable, sustainable alternatives to fossil oil as future sources of liquid fuels, and to develop superior solutions to biofuels currently produced from food crops such as corn-based ethanol and biodiesel from palm oil.

Key results

Muradel was able to build and operate a demonstration scale facility to assess the commercial feasibility of converting microalgae to biocrude. Muradel successfully demonstrated that an energy positive biofuel could be produced from micoralgae and that the carbon footprint was less than the derived equivalent fuel. However biofuels could not be produced at parity with fossil fuels using microalgae as the biomass feedstock demonstrating that significant barriers exist to the economic production of algal biofuels.

A major outcome from the project was the development of Muradel’s proprietary HTL technology, which is able to transform a wide range of organic feedstocks to biofuels and specialty chemicals. Muradel’s current focus is in converting low cost feedstocks (renewable waste sources) to renewable fuels and chemicals.