G’day everyone!
Today is Wednesday, January 5th and welcome back to our weekly round-up!
If you’re looking for some easy reading, why not head over to Blue Tech Base (BTB) to get your daily dose of algae and climate-tech?
In the meantime, as promised, here are 3 memes, 2 review highlights, and 1 BTB investor chat to consider this week...
Into the climate-technical archives
Spicing your life up through our reviews of breakthrough climate-tech papers and innovations, both old and new.
Algae EV bikes
In this article, we take you back to pre-iPhone 2006 and consider the work of Raymundo-Piñero et al. who anchor their investigative work in the midst of the nascent but predictably expansive world of EV's, supercapacitors and portable mobile devices. The hero of this story? Seaweed.
In this paper, named "A High-Performance Carbon for Supercapacitors Obtained by Carbonization of a Seaweed Biopolymer", the team try to improve supercapacitor functionality by developing a pseudo-capacitor made from ALG-C, an elegantly named carbon material capable of powering electric vehicles.
For those of you unfamiliar to the term, supercapacitors are energy storage systems found in wind turbines and EV’s.
The goal of this research was to create a highly conductive, cheap carbon material containing a high concentration of functional groups, which can participate in pseudofaradaic charge-transfer reactions. By thermally decomposing sodium alginate from algae at 600°C, they created the biochar ALG-C, which was used to make electrodes in the supercapacitor.
It did so well that this work was duly considered a breakthrough in enhancing the energy density of supercapacitors, and was one of a series of pioneering papers in this field.
Unfortunately, supercapacitors have historically battled for energy storage top-spot with....
You got it... Batteries!
In the past 15 years this has not changed, and supercapacitors remain out of favour, which partly explains why this area of algae research isn’t massive.
Who called this a weed?
Back to 2022 now.
The desire to create electricity from living organisms may not be completely new...
But what if I told you it could be done using living seaweed? In this article, we review some great work done by Shlosberg et al. who investigate bioelectricity generation using live marine photosynthetic macroalgae:
Bio-photoelectrochemical cells (BPECs) are a sub-class of Microbial fuel cells (MFC's) that produce a photocurrent from photosynthetic organisms like cyanobacteria or microalgae. Utilising more evolved photosynthetic organisms in BPEC's had never been reported...
Until Shlosberg et al. came along and reported the first ever use of Ulva macroalgae (seaweed) in such a system. They configure the BPEC for macroalgal tissues by using stainless steel anode clips that hold the seaweed in place in the solution (see figure 1). As natural light shines on the seaweed, the plant produces NADPH, which diffuses towards the anode clips and transfers electrons, creating current. These BPECs produce electrical currents of >50 mA/ cm2, not bad compared to solar panels (28-100mA/cm2).
As a result of their findings, they propose the following configuration for future BPEC setups:
So, what's so cool about all this and what can it teach us?
(1) Macroalgae can produce bio-electrical currents in a simple, inexpensive way using seawater, one of the most abundant resources on the planet.
(2) We can get a bio-electrical current in the dark or light, with or without added bias on the anode.
(3) Imagine using BPECs in industrial settings where the seaweed is grown for food, plastics or fuels while also performing solar energy conversion. How epic would that be?
Fireside Chats
This week we sat down with the spectacular Phoebe Harrop from Blackbird VC, a venture capital fund based in Australia and New Zealand. These guys invest in every type of technology from software to space, unified by the biggest of ambitions. In this edited conversation, Phoebe spoke about her perspective on climate-tech, and her journey into the space. Here are some highlights:
What lessons can you take away from your climate-tech investments so far?
“In the case of deep engineering start-ups, the risk is that you spend too much time focusing on the product, and nowhere near enough time on understanding the market. My main advice to founders would be to understand your customer, get obsessed with their problems and go down the rabbit hole with them.”
How did you get involved with Blackbird VC and when did you start working on climate-tech?
“It all probably started in 2005 when “An Inconvenient Truth” came out. That film sparked my interest in the climate crisis and fostered my desire to work on environmental topics. After studying law, I noticed most change was being made in the private sector and business. It seemed to me that by controlling the capital, you could control the outcomes. As a result, I joined Bain where I learned how organisations tick.
During my time there, I did some volunteer work for Impact Investing Australia. Hearing their CEO discuss how to align non-financial goals with finance resonated with me. I did some work in investment advisory when I was in London, and from there moved into investing by joining Generation, Al Gore's investment fund.
We invested in companies with innovative business models and technologies trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It was a privilege to work there but I left for Blackbird VC six months ago because I wanted to build my career here in New Zealand. Blackbird is one of the only funds in New Zealand which would allow me to invest in wacky science fiction companies like “Energy Bank”. It also has a unique approach to working with founders, and there's nowhere else I'd want to work.”
That’s all folks!
Thanks again for joining us this week! Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Best,
Pete
Blue Tech Base