Aquaflow breaks into US market

Just four and a half years after start-up, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation has developed expertise in wild algae harvesting and cultivation technology that helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time demonstrating the viability of new sources of energy from algal crude.

It caught the world’s attention with its smart technology, fuelled in no small part by its demonstrated capability to produce the world’s first fully Jet A 1 compliant synthetic kerosene jet fuel from wild algae.

Algae are used to convert carbon dioxide, sludge and wastewater for use in bio fuel and energy production.

Breaking into the United States

Aquaflow’s acknowledged expertise in wild algae harvesting and conversion led to a recently-signed deal between Aquaflow and Honeywell’s subsidiary UOP in a United States Department of Energy US$1.5m cooperative agreement project. 

Honeywell is a Fortune 100 company that invents and manufactures technologies to address challenges linked to global megatrends such as safety, security, and energy.

UOP is a biofuel technology developer and is part of the Honeywell Specialty Materials business.

Aquaflow and UOP will work together to convert wild algae into fuel products that meet international standards utilising existing UOP processes to produce renewable fuel. And together, they will develop a carbon dioxide sequestration storage model for Aquaflow’s algal crude production facilities.

Aquaflow will contribute its accumulated knowledge and experience gained from its Blenheim (New Zealand) site to grow and assess key characteristics of algae species indigenous to Virginia’s James River waterway in a series of monitored algae cultivation trials involving CO2 and nutrient waste water from a Honeywell manufacturing site.

All of the biomass is converted to what Aquaflow has termed green crude, with similar properties to fossil crude oil. Other processes usually only extract the lipid oil portion only, leaving behind proteins and carbohydrates. 

Aquaflow is currently running a detailed chemistry programme focused on identifying the compounds present in its green crude. This analysis will then lead to a menu of ‘drop in’ fuels and chemicals that will be able to be produced. Aquaflow has no significant or toxic waste from its process.

The US project, managed by the US Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory, will realise further environmental benefit because wastewater from the manufacturing facility will be used in the algae cultivation system, allowing the algae to consume nitrogen in the wastewater.

At the demonstration site, UOP will design equipment to capture CO2 from the exhaust stacks of the Hopewell caprolactam facility and deliver it to a pond near the plant.  Algae will be grown at the pond using technology developed by Aquaflow Bionomic Corp as well as automated control systems from Honeywell Process Solutions.