The OriginOil System
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The OriginOil Growth Cycle
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Quantum Fracturing for
Oil Extraction
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Helix BioReactor
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The Single-Step Extraction Process
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Live Extraction
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The OriginOil System addresses traditional algae production problems in both the growth and extraction stages.
Feeding Stage
The first step in producing industrial algae is the feeding stage. OriginOil’s first discovery, low-pressure Quantum Fracturing™, works by breaking up carbon dioxide and other nutrients into micron-sized bubbles and infusing them into the growth vessel.
This process achieves total and instantaneous distribution of nutrients to the algae culture.
Growth Stage
Growing algae in water is a challenge because as it grows, the algae thicken and stop light. One solution is OriginOil’s Helix BioReactor™, which features a rotating vertical shaft of lights inside the tank. Alternatively, lights are stationary while other components rotate. Today, these lights are highly-efficient LEDs that are tuned precisely to the wavelengths that algae prefer.
Another method, OriginOil’s Attached Growth System™, rotates the algae periodically out of the water so it can be exposed to sunlight. This process uses types of algae that will attach to surfaces, delivering scalability and throughput in an industrial process that grows algae for fuel and helps process wastewater at the same time.
Lighting
The Helix Bioreactor utilizes very low energy lights arranged in a helix or spiral pattern, which results in a theoretically unlimited number of growth layers. Additionally, each lighting element is engineered to produce specific light waves and frequencies for optimal algae growth.
The helix structure also serves as the bioreactor’s nutrient delivery system, through which the Quantum Fractured nutrients, including CO2, is evenly delivered to the entire algae culture, monitored and tuned for optimum growth.
Alternate lighting systems include static light arrays and the Attached Growth System.
Cascading Production™
OriginOil has shown that you can harvest a given amount of algae every day, and the population will grow back to previous levels by the next day. This daily harvest process is called Cascading Production and is key to achieving industrial rates of algae growth.
Extraction Stage
Algae live in water — a thousand parts of water for each single part of algae. Extracting the algae from this water and separating it into oil and biomass is a major cost and energy challenge.
OriginOil has developed a method for separating the oil and biomass in the daily harvest without having to dewater the algae. This is called Single-Step Extraction™.
A continuous harvest is possible in addition to the daily harvest. This continuous process is called Live Extraction™.
Single-Step Extraction™
At each periodic harvest in the Cascading Production process, the mature ‘green water’ is removed and fed through the Single-Step Extraction device, where Quantum Fracturing™ combines with pulsed electromagnetic fields and pH modification to break down cell walls, thereby releasing the oil within the cells, which rises to the top for skimming and refining. The remaining biomass settles to the bottom for further processing as fuel and other valuable products.
OriginOil’s low energy process to extract oil from algae achieves the highest industry standards for oil extraction efficiency without requiring chemicals or significant capital expenditure for heavy machinery. With Single-Step Extraction, the amount of energy used to crack the algae can be many times less than other extraction technologies and results in separated oils, water and biomass.
OriginOil’s Attached Growth System is also useful to concentrate algae, as the harvest can be scraped off as a sludge that is many times thicker than the green fluid of algae suspended in water.
After extraction, the water is recycled back into the system. The harvested oil is packaged for refining and distribution, and the algae mass is devoted to various ‘green’ applications like animal feed, ethanol and construction materials.
Live Extraction™
Throughout the growing process, algae oil can be extracted without permanent cell damage in a sort of milking process called Live Extraction.
This continuous process yields a very high quality oil. Single-Step Extraction should still be employed for maximum productivity and to refresh the algae population.
Enabling a Distributed Oil Model
The OriginOil System is designed to be modular. It can function as a standalone oil producing system, or can be connected in a parallel network to produce a large number of barrels per day output. OriginOil Systems can be placed anywhere to operate as round-the-clock oil-producing plants.
By enabling distributed oil production we can help transform the oil and energy industry from a centralized to a distributed model. The ability to generate clean, carbon-neutral energy anywhere can empower industrialization in villages, townships, communities, states and countries. There will be no need to import oil.
A new oil can be cleanly manufactured in an industrialized process using the OriginOil System.
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