Algiesel

The ultimate vehicle owners dream, making cars run on water. Ok we can't do that yet but we can grow stuff in it which we can run the vehicles on. Lets take this dream a step further, lets say we can use waste water!!!

Say hello to algae, the future of biofuels!!! That's right, algae are the most promising source of biofuels today, and they can be grown anywhere, even waste water which pollutes rivers when it is dumped in them. Whats more they can reduce the polluting effect. We, a team from IITM, have taken up the challenge of realizing this.

Come this shaastra, we shall introduce you to a technology that might just help you make biodiesel out of algae, useless otherwise. Starting out with the faintest of ideas and a series of exhaustive experiments, we have made good friends with algae and would like to introduce you to them!

Getting to business,
We have designed a system which proves that we require nothing more than algae growing in waste water(oxidation pond) and a little bit of energy, and which will give you biodiesel that can actually make your vehicles run.

To explain the working, well, all living cells have cell membranes, and organelles which are a storehouse of lipids. Lipids can be converted to biodiesel using a process called transesterification. However, the amount of bio-mass we can acquire by growing any plant is over 30 times less than the amount of algae we can grow in water. So much for bio gyan.

The engineering part of the project, we felt, was much more challenging, thanks to the miniscule size of each cell. The separation of the algae from the water ! Overcoming some of the challenges, and still working on some, we feel that our efforts should be worth the product.

Using the shaastra jargon, we feel algae have truly evolved to be a savior (which of course was recognized by the very best of minds! :P ) On a more serious note, Biodiesel is all ready to usurp petro-chemical based liquid fuels. It is already cheaper than petroleum based diesel in some countries.