The Burrill Report


Joule Unlimited has received a patent on a process that converts sunlight and waste carbon dioxide directly into liquid hydrocarbons that are freely interchangeable with conventional diesel fuel—a process that overcomes the costs and complexities associated with converting biomass into fuel.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech’s patent covers the use of engineered photosynthetic microorganisms for the direct synthesis of diesel molecules. These microorganisms can grow in waste water or on land unfit for farming. They function as biocatalysts that use only sunlight, waste CO2 and non-fresh water to secrete alkanes, diesel-range hydrocarbons that are chemically distinct from biodiesel and are compatible with existing infrastructure.

Joule’s industrial bioprocess is the first to achieve production of hydrocarbon fuels without using any conventional feedstocks such as sugar, algae, or agricultural biomass. The company believes it sets the stage for fossil fuel replacement at efficiencies and costs as low as $30 per barrel equivalent. The entire process produces more net energy than it consumes and yields sulfur-free, ultra-clean diesel, according to the company.

“This patent award represents a critical milestone for our IP strategy and validates the truly revolutionary nature of our process, which has the potential to yield infrastructure-compatible replacements for fossil fuels at meaningful scale and highly-competitive costs, even before subsidies,” says Bill Sims, Joule’s president and CEO. “Our vision since inception has been to overcome the limitations of biomass-based technologies, from feedstock costs and logistics to inefficient, energy-intensive processing. The result is the world’s first platform for converting sunlight and waste CO2 directly into diesel, requiring no costly intermediates, no use of agricultural land or fresh water, and no downstream processing.”

Joule’s engineered bugs are cyanobacteria, although known as blue-green algae, is not technically an algae. Besides engineered microorganisms, the company incorporates materials, photonic, and thermal engineering to create its closed system.

Joule is applying advanced genome engineering to develop a library of proprietary organisms, each one optimized for productivity according to the desired end product. The organisms are engineered to directly synthesize and secrete fuels, to avoid costly steps such as large-scale biomass production and collection or other downstream refinement.

Joule has already achieved the direct production of diesel, and will begin pilot production by the end of 2010. The company has also achieved the direct production of ethanol using the same process at a rate of 10,000 gallons/acre/year, 40 percent of its ultimate productivity target, and pilot operations are underway in Leander, Texas.




September 16, 2010
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-liquid_fuel_directly_from_sunlight.html