Helioculture: Hybrid Solar Panels for Direct Solar Energy Conversion into Biofuels

"Helioculture" is a recent buzzword that is creating ripples of curious interest in the biofuels world. The technology was recently launched by an American start-up company, Joule Biotechnologies. An interesting innovation in the technology is its capability to convert solar energy directly into biofuels without any intermediate processing steps in between. In conventional biofuels processing, solar energy is first utilized to cultivate a bioenergy feedstock (i.e. a crop or algae). The feedstock is then converted into the target biofuel, through a long series of biological (microbial/enzymatic) or thermo-chemical processing steps. These intermediate steps contribute substantially to the cost of the biofuel. The direct conversion process in helioculture does away with the intermediate steps, and is therefore seen to substantially reduce biofuel processing costs and improve sustainability of biofuel production. The system essentially consists of a solar converter (in a solar panel configuration) that is filled with brackish water, nutrients and an "engineered" photosynthetic organism which directly converts solar energy and CO₂ into liquid biofuels (schematic diagram in related information URL below). Among the attractive features of the "direct-to-fuel-conversion" of helioculture are: (1) no freshwater requirement, (2) minimal land use needed for production, (3) "avoids costly intermediate processing" steps that are usually present in other biofuel production processes, and (4) "enables the scale, unlimited quantities and pricing required for energy independence".

Related information: How Heliotechnology Works (schematic diagram) http://www.joulebio.com/why-solar-fuel/how-it-works