Team Algal Scientific turns wastewater into energy, seed money

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 | Source: Concentrate

Most people want dirty, wastewater to just go away. Not the people at Team Algal Scientific. The University of Michigan/Michigan State University spin-off is hoping the day comes when they simply can't get enough of the stuff.

A group of mostly U-M graduate students and a MSU graduate student created a wastewater treatment system that uses algae to remove nutrients from contaminated water leaving the raw materials for biofuels. The idea was good enough to take first place at the inaugural Clean Energy Prize.

The competition, hosted by U-M and DTE Energy, offers $100,000 in seed capital to start-ups so young they aren't yet proven enough for venture capital or angel investors. Team Algal Scientific took the grand prize of $65,000, which it plans to use developing its product's first phases.

Right now that crew of four co-founders and a slew of advisors have been working on the idea at U-M since November. They hope to move its research to the MBI International technology incubator in Lansing ...and try not spend all of that money in one place.

"Our one-year plan is to scale up at MBI," says Robert Levine, the chief technology officer at Team Algal Scientific and a PhD student in chemical engineering at U-M. "The second phase is to team up with a brewer or other waste producer to prove the technology."

The other team members include Geoff Horst, an ecology doctoral student at MSU, U-M master of business administration students Jeff LeBrun and John Rice.

Source: Robert Levine, the chief technology officer at Team Algal Scientific
Writer: Jon Zemke