Whats the viability of algae?
Algae as of current has a plethora of practical applications including:
• Very effective absorber of CO2
• It can make (as of current) crude 3D plastic filament
• You can burn it for energy
• Produce protein and vitamin rich foods
• It has been sort after as a cure for a hangover
• Can product many biofuels including gasoline, diesel and even jet fuel
• Use it as fertiliser and product dog food
• Use it as an ethical and sustainable alternative to traditional ink dye (not just green)
• One of the most common algae species being grown now, spirulina, produces Blue Majik a health drink family
This is from a video of algae ink that uses the natural growing properties of the organism to grow overtime when in sunlight to reveal slowly whats printed on the paper . From Living Ink Technologies founded by Scott Fullbright.
To summarise, any food rich in protein, health supplements and anything produced from crude oil — has algae coming for it.
As for business today taking advantage of algae, San Francisco based Alga Via algae based flour rich in fat, protein, fiber, and micronutrients to be used as ingredient in other foods. Portuguese based Allmicroalgae farm algae and sell as powder or paste form to increase the accessibility to algae based products. Another Portuguese firm Solazyme, does a similar thing producing oils and fuel from algae, even producing an algae based vegan egg. One final Portuguese based algae company Algae 4 Future conduct research and development into the industrial production of microalgae to then partner with manufactures to use. BuyAlgae enables the purchasing and selling of algae biomass and products produced form, this on their platform. From this we got the measurement appropriate for distributing algae, how to categorise them, the for to distribute pre and post grow algae and other facts regarding the condition of a given algae batch. There is even potential to create cancer killing robots out of algae.
Now, thanks to bio-tech dedicated incubators, more of these innovators can rise up with few resources.
