NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. Path to Commercial Algal Biofuels Through Combination of Process Cost Reductions and Identification of Novel Coproducts Biofuels 2015 August 25, 2015 Philip T. Pienkos

2 Top 10 Reasons Why Algae Are Interesting 1.Can be grown on non-arable land 2.Can be grown in saline or brackish water 3.Can remediate wastewater and capture N and P 4.Can capture CO2 from point sources like flue gas from power plants 5.Can grow faster than terrestrial crops 6.Can produce as much as 70% lipids based on dry cell weight 7.Can utilize sugars and other carbon sources in addition to CO2 8.Can be used for food and feed 9.Grown commercially to produce a wide variety of value added products including beta-carotene and omega-3 fatty acids. 10.Can grow year-round (as long as they don’t freeze)

3 Heterotrophic Growth

4 Open Pond Phototrophic Growth

5 Photobioreactor Phototrophic Growth

6 Conceptual Process for Algal Biofuels

7 Crude Oil Price Projections. ASP started ASP ended DOE Algae Roadmapping Workshop Current price of crude oil

National Renewable Energy Laboratory Innovation for Our Energy Future Standardized Cost Comparison Average = $109 USD/gal Variability is wide, Std. Dev. = $301 USD/gal

Cost of Biomass Production: Harmonization Report Background Harmonization of TEA (NREL), LCA (ANL) and RA (PNNL) models Input from stakeholders at DOE- sponsored workshop held in 2011 Harmonization metrics Open pond system Growth in Southeastern US 13.2 g/m 2 /day 25% lipid content Biomass production cost $1090/ton Minimum Fuel Selling Price $18.63 per gallon

10 If Everybody Had a Surfboard…

11 There’s More to Algae Than Lipids

12 Take a Lesson from Cellulosic Ethanol

13 Pretreatment Equipment at NREL 2 L Batch High Solids Zipperclave Reactor mL High Throughput CEM Microwave Reactor 120 L Batch High Solids Jaygo Reactor

14 Cell Disruption with Dilute Acid Pretreatment

15 Pretreatment Results Lipid Recovery Monomeric Sugar Recovery

16 New Design Case for Algal Lipid Upgrading

17 Combined Algal Processing Sample Ethanol Process Yield Slurry + YP82% Slurry – YP85% Sugar Control90% ExtractionFAME Purity FAME Recovery 1 st 92.5% ± 1.0%81.6% ± 1.2% 2 nd 92.4% ± 1.1%8.9% ± 1.6% total 90.6% ± 1.2% A. B.

18 Algal Oil Can Be Converted to Hydrocarbons Algal oil diluted to 25% in hexane Liquid product is primarily n-paraffin Oxygen removal is primarily through decarbon/xylation

19 Significant Cost Savings by Valorizing Algal Sugars Pretreatment Solids loading (wt%)20% Acid loading (wt% vs feed liquor)2% Fermentable sugar release74% Carbs to degradation products1.50% Fermentation Fermentation batch time (hr)18 Sugar diversion to organism seed growth6% Fermentable sugar to ethanol98.5 % Lipid Extraction + Upgrading Solvent loading (solvent/dry biomass ratio, wt)5.9 Total convertible lipid extraction yield87% Polar lipid impurity partition to extract<11.5% Hydrotreating RDB yield (wt% of oil feed)80% Hydrotreating H 2 Consumption (wt% of oil feed)1.70% Fuel Yields Renewable diesel blendstock (RDB, % of biomass DW)29.2 Renewable diesel blendstock fuel yield (GGE/ton)95.5 Ethanol (% of biomass DW)14.9 Ethanol fuel yield (GGE/ton)30.9 Total gasoline equivalent fuel yield (GGE/ton)126.3

20 Succinic Acid: Value Added Coproduct Organic Acids

21 Algal Biomass Offers Potential for Wide Array of Scalable Co-Products *Co-product market size could support >10 full scale algae farms

22 The Whole Barrel

23 TAGs Multiproduct Algal Biorefinery HC Fuels Fatty AcidsTAGs Direct production of fuels and chemicals Sugars to fuels and chemicals Oils for chemicals, foods, nutraceuticals, cosmetics Green Fertilizer Food, feed Proteins for feed, plastics, chemicals

24 Acknowledgements Bob McCormick Jake Kruger Earl Christensen Lisa Fouts Seth Noone Derek Vardon Jesse Hensley David Robichaud Lieve Laurens Ryan Davis Nick Nagle Eric Knoshaug Stefanie Van Wychen Deb Hyman Holly Smith Ali Mohagheghi Chris Kinchin

25 Thank you. Any questions?