A key step towards continuous algae production is being claimed today (16th December), by technology developer OriginOil, with the successful automation of the company's Helix BioReactor™ system. The move, says OriginOil, allows greater control of the growth environment and efficient, low-cost industrial algae production. This, says the company, makes large-scale commercial algae production scalable.

The design of the Helix BioReactor utilizes low-energy lights arranged in a helix pattern and a rotating vertical shaft design, which allows algae culture to replicate exponentially within a smaller installation footprint.

"The successful automation of our Helix BioReactor is an enormous leap for us, as it brings us one step closer to ending the world’s reliance on petroleum," said OriginOil founder and chief executive officer, Riggs Eckelberry.

The automation will, says the company, provide real-time control over all stages of monitoring, nutrient injection and CO2 delivery at the micron or Quantum Fracturing level. Nutrient and CO2 delivery are timed precisely to a proprietary algorithm to provide an optimum micron-mixed fluid in the bioreactor. Through programming of certain key metrics, such as pH, oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) and temperature, the system is capable of not only monitoring but also controlling flow and timing of events in the algae growth cycle, which is crucial to controlling batch health in continuous algae production.

Eckelberry concluded: "By understanding the underlying code issues in the software design, we can utilize this information in our upcoming larger bioreactor versions, which is imperative to establishing algae as a true solution within the energy sector."