After several years of algae-based research including work in cultivation and electromagnetic energy technology, Agrisys, a Florida-based algae developer, has plans to break ground on a new algae refinery on the shores of Lake Apopka near Orlando. “We’ve been very quiet about Agrisys,” said Thomas Brozkinski of Agrisys’ science staff said. “We wanted to make sure it works.” The announcement for construction comes as the culmination of three other companies, all formed to develop various pieces to the Agrisys system, each completed self-imposed milestones, said Brozkinski. Now, the company intends to build an end-to-end system that will perform every step of the algae-to-fuel process.

A research institute founded in part by Agrisys creator, Nick VandenBrekel, along with another venture called Petrogreen Corp., worked to develop cultivation and algae strain strategies that the company will now use at the future facility. The “center of the universe” for Agrisys, however, was formed by work on the Proton Pulse, an electromagnetic system based on the principal of what Brozkinski calls photo disassociation. The system allows Agrisys to extract nearly 30 percent oil from a wet slurry (leaving almost 70 percent as protein). Because the process doesn’t require drying the algae, the system can be run continuously. “The molecular compound is broken down by photons, and the photons of course are electromagnetic waves of energy of visible light,” Brozkinski said. “It’s a very specific technology that we’ve worked very hard on.”

The process is similar to ultrasonic cavitations, but is less expensive according to Brozkinski. “Imagine a big chamber made of steel fiber component. There are pulsating mechanisms as the algae flows through the chambers and it creates electromagnetic energy,” he said. The resulting energy creates disruption in the algae and separates the oil from the biomass. Using the Proton Pulse, Agrisys can extract oil for roughly 21 cents a gallon, Brozkinski said. “To put it in perspective, today we can make a barrel of crude oil (42 gallons) for $69 per barrel.”

While the extraction technology is arguably the main component of the Agrisys system, Brozkinski also points to the farming practices. “This is a platform that is all about farming,” he said, a platform that uses raceway ponds fed by a mixture of feed he was unwilling to discuss and, instead, related it to the formula for Coca-Cola.

“For the last three years we have been able to grow algae with lipid content of 36 to 39 percent,” he said.

The future facility will feature two growing ponds per acre, totaling close to 2,000 ponds. In the past, the company has experimented with pumping carbon dioxide into the ponds but has found that the algae, nongenetically modified strains found in the U.S., grow fine without it. “I think the management system is highly proprietary,” Brozkinski said, “but no real rocket science. It’s not like the Proton Pulse.”

The privately funded company plans to break ground in 2011 and the refinery will produce biodiesel, JP8 and other products like Omega-3 and Omega-7 oils using a 40,000 gallon per day version of the Proton Pulse. The system, originally developed by Agrisys founder VandenBrekel for other applications, has already been used to produce nearly 7,000 gallons of algae oil. “We’ve been working on it for years,” Brozkinski said. “It’s only now coming out in the news. When finished, there will be no facility like it.”