Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-21
By: CNA
Taiwanese researchers have developed a system that uses microalgae
Tsai Wen-tien poses with his team members at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, May 19. (Photo/CNA)
cultivated in partially treated wastewater as a feedstock for biomedicine and biofuel production, providing huge business opportunities.
It took a research team at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology five years to develop the microalgae cultivation and biodiesel production system, which took top prize in the university category in a national energy innovation competition last year. The technology has also begun attracting attention from the academic and business sectors from home and abroad, said Tsai Wen-tien, director of the university’s Graduate Institute of Bioresources and the team leader.
Microalgae are a group of unicellular or simple multicellular fast-growing photosynthetic microorganisms that live on carbon dioxide (CO2) from different sources, including industrial exhaust gases and soluble carbonate salts, according to Tsai.
The team cultivated the microalgae by coupling a wastewater treatment process with an algal photobioreactor for nutrient removal and biomass production, using enriched CO2 from industrial exhaust gases, according to Tsai. [FULL STORY]
