CULTURE COLLECTION
The productivity per given area of photosynthetic microbes such as algae is over ten times greater than that of terrestrial plants. They grow up to 15 times faster than any plant on land. And the biodiversity of photosynthetic microbes is enormous – estimated at more than 100,000 species– and yet most of it remains biochemically and metabolically unexplored. To date, only four species of photosynthetic microbes have been cultivated at industrial scale.
The collection of algae used by HR BioPetroleum is, in part, the result of an exclusive license from the University of Hawaii. The algae from this collection, as well as additional strains of algae, have been screened through a high-throughput system in order to determine which strain has the best performance characteristics for a given range of environmental conditions. The strains have been tested for different growth conditions such as salinity, pH, and temperature, and for optimum production of product such as algae oil or astaxanthan, a valuable carotenoid pigment.