Heike Winter-Sederoff has an eye for recognizing the potential in some of the smallest and most commonly overlooked things.
This summer Sederoff, assistant professor of plant biology, sent experiments on a common garden weed to the International Space Station. Now she’s looking to make biofuels out of an algae commonly used in fish feed to make salmon orange. She’s also investigating the oily properties of the camelina seed, a mustard plant that thrives in poor conditions.
Unlike biodiesel and ethanol, Sederoff is using the Dunaliella salina algae to produce lipids and fatty acids that burn similarly to petroleum.
“The oils this algae produces will be converted into a fuel that can be substituted for petroleum based fuels,” Sederoff said.
Unlike ethanol, which is only a supplement, algae biofuels can replace petroleum fuels 100 percent.
“Ethanol is only an additive,” Sederoff said. “If you’re driving a car you can only use 15 percent of your fuel as ethanol. The biofuels we are making will be ‘drop in replacements,’ or complete on.”
Amy Gruden, associate professor of microbiology, is working to isolate genes in extremophile archaeabacteria—the living relics of ancient prokaryotic bacteria that thrive in extreme conditions. High salinity environments interest Gruden and Sederoff most.
“I work with halophilic bacteria, which are extremely salt tolerant,” Gruden said. “The algae we are using is a halophile itself, so it grows in sea water. The reason why we went with this is so we don’t have to worry about freshwater usage, which is a commodity we want to save on in the biofuels option.”
According to Gruden and Sederoff, the military is looking to turn to biofuels in the near future. Sederoff said any car company can produce a battery that can power a truck, but aircraft rely on hydrocarbon fuels for combustion. The Air Force plans to operate on 50 percent biofuels by 2016.
“The military has made a huge commitment to biofuels,” Sederoff said. “And if the military can become independent on oil, then we can forget about all those issues.”
