Darpan Gupta

I think CO2 is also a good source of food accompanied with SO2/ NO2.

So if you have some source of flue gases of power house then algae will bloom speedily.

Regards.

Muhammad Imran

You need to check the economic viability of whole system as that will determine how your venture of using CO2 from power plant flue gas would yield benefits. Also please check the most efficient species / strain for growth.  

Exhaust gases from power plant, which are driven by fossil based or bio-based fuel, contain HC (hydro-carbon), NOx (nitro-oxigen), CO (carbon-monoxide), particulates and other harmful emissions. These components have bad effect on health and thus have to be observed and reduced. Several legislation for mobile and stationary applications of combustion engines limit these type of emissions. CO2 emissions are not harmful (allthough they have a negative influence on the greenhouse effect on earth), and they are an important basis for plant cultivation.

If the exhaust emissions of a power plant should be used for Algae cultivation, the composition of the emissions should be known well, to make sure that the harmfull components do not exceed (legislative) prescribed levels.

Best regards,

Mario

I want to do analysis in reverse direction.... That means the algae species can be decided later. My first problem is that is their any species which can consume power plant flue gas directly without any processing... @Vaibhav Sir, its true that we have to see the economic viability of the whole system but first we have to know what are the options for designing the whole system. I am working on the species and I will surely be in contact with you for further consultation.

   Now my main concern is to know whether direct utilization of Coal based thermal Power plant flue gas possible or some further processing is required.

For reference, Sample specification of Flue gas from some Power Plant is as follows:-

• CO2 (%) - 15%
• SO2 (ppm) - 280-285
• NOx (ppm) - 585-595 

As seen here, CO2 %age is quite low and consist of considerable amount of SO2 and NOx. I believe it is not economic to use this flue gas directly as cultivation will not be that efficient. Even then I want to explore the opportunity.

Please comment.

Several researchers have attempted to grow algae using CO2 from power plant emission, cement plants emission , distilleries emission etc. As I have already mentioned the challenge is economic viability. As mentioned by Mario there are several other gases which are detrimental to algal growth. The biggest challenge is to identify the algal strain which could grow fast and that too with presence of all these gases. As per one estimate a 300 MW power plant might require as much as 8000 acres of cultivation area to capture the CO2 emitted. Thus growing alga in limited space at less cost is crucial.     

Very interesting topic, I would like to read articles on this topic, is there any techno-economic modelling available for this idea?

http://www.carboncapturejournal.com/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=3583

Have a look at the above link to show some commercial projects and the report produced by IEA.

We have attempted to grow the algae from power plant flue gas, NOx shows benefits to the algae to grow while the SOX has a detrimental effect.