OriginOil Teams Up with Desmet Ballestra for Algae Market
OriginOil, Inc. the developer of a technology that transforms algae into a competitor to petroleum, recently announced a partnership with Desmet Ballestra, an international pioneer in oil and fats technologies.
"Desmet Ballestra is an early leader in the implementation and sale of full-scale algae extraction systems. With Desmet Ballestra as a worldwide partner, OriginOil can begin commercializing its algae-to-oil technology on a global scale," said Riggs Eckelberry, chief executive officer of OriginOil.
"We are looking forward to working with OriginOil on a partnership that we believe will be mutually beneficial," said Desmet Ballestra North America president and Chief Executive Officer Timothy G. Kemper. "We are enthusiastically modeling the use of OriginOil's Single Step Extraction technology in commercial algal oil extraction systems, and expect to announce further industry-impacting details in the months to come."
Conventional algae oil extraction systems use petrochemical or alcohol solvents to extract algae oil. In this process, the largest amount of energy consumption comes from the initial steps of dewatering and drying the algal biomass. The OriginOil technology, however, allows the oil to be separated from the algal biomass in water with no dewatering or drying steps.
Desmet Ballestra is a private company based in Zaventem, Belgium, serving the seed crushing, oil refining, oleochemical, surfactant, and detergent markets. It has operations in Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico, the United States, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.