UAE bio-energy research project to enter demonstration phase in 2024

UAE bio-energy research project to enter demonstration phase in 2024

A bio-energy research project in the UAE, which aims to make biofuels from Salicornia plants, is expected to enter the demonstration phase by 2024, the Director of the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC) told Zawya Projects. Alejandro Rios Galvan, who is also a Chief Research Scientist at Abu Dhabi-based Khalifa University of Science and Technology, revealed that the 200-acre demonstration facility would include a 1,000 tonnes per annum commercial fish farm and produce small quantities of oil that can be turned into synthetic paraffinic kerosene. For over a decade, Seawater Energy and Agriculture System (SEAS), SBRC’s flagship project at Khalifa University, has been studying the commercial viability of producing jet fuel derived from plants grown with salt water in arid regions. The project consists of three subsystems: fish farming using sea water, the utilisation of nutrient rich wastewater is used to cultivate Salicornia, an annual oil seed plant that contains 30 percent vegetable oil; the utilisation of discharged water to grow carbon-sucking mangrove trees that absorb the residual nutrients before the water makes its way to the ocean. The remaining straw can be processed into ethanol, biogas or animal fodder. Producing SAF Galvan cautioned that achieving a scale where the