Heating and squishing microalgae in a pressure-cooker can fast-forward the crude-oil-making process from millennia to minutes.
U-M chemical engineers are working to understand and improve this procedure in an effort to speed up development of affordable biofuels that could replace fossil fuels and power today's engines.
"This research could play a major role in the nation's transition toward energy independence and reduced carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector," said Phillip Savage, an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the U-M Department of Chemical Engineerin
g and principal investigator on the $2-million National Science Foundation grant that supports this project. The grant is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.