Announcements

Researchers discover an important metric for designing efficient industrial algae production systems

Los Angeles, CA January 12, 2010 - OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL), the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum, announced that ongoing industrial algae experiments have uncovered a constant daily rate of algae production. This Daily Harvest Constant is reached once the algae stabilizes into steady state growth.
Algae can be harvested on a daily basis, enabling industrial levels of production. In a series of experiments in 2009, OriginOil researchers have learned that the amount that can be harvested in the organism’s steady state appears to stabilize at a specific amount of algae biomass per day, regardless of the concentration of algae.

OriginOil operations VP Scott Fraser commented: “This Daily Harvest Constant is a potential industry breakthrough, because it makes it clear that increasing the concentration of algae beyond a certain level will not be productive for daily harvests. The understanding of this Daily Harvest Constant growth curve will allow the design of ultra-efficient systems that are optimized around the lowest possible concentration that can still deliver continuous daily production of algae.”

The Daily Harvest Constant will be tested in different configurations and scales by OriginOil researchers. The company's research partners, the Idaho National Laboratory of the Department of Energy and IIRMES (the research laboratory of Cal State Long Beach), are expected to assist materially in this task. To the company’s knowledge, no other industrial algae production system has incorporated the Daily Harvest Constant concept in its design.