Can Seaweed Save Internal Combustion? These Scientists Surely Think So

The topic of sustainable alternative fuels has been on fire for quite some time now. More and more, people are looking at things other than electricity to achieve carbon neutrality. And while it’s generally agreed that EVs still hold the key to the future of mobility, it’s reassuring to see more and more initiatives geared towards alternative fuels to keep the good old internal combustion engine alive and kicking.

We’ve talked a whole bunch about hydrogen and how it has the potential for mass adoption in the not too distant future. But another, often overlooked alternative fuel source is something much closer to home—so close that some folks actually deal with it on a daily basis.

For the people living in Barbados situated in the south-eastern Caribbean sea, sargassum, a type of sludgy seaweed, is indeed something they deal with every day. So much so that the country’s prime minister declared a national emergency due to how much of the seaweed was piling up on the country’s coastlines.

It’s bad, and I mean really bad. So bad, in fact, that the country’s local tourism was beginning to suffer, as hotels and resorts have had to spend millions of dollars to keep the seaweed invasion at bay. To make things even worse, sargassum releases hydrogen sulfide, which can cause eye irritations, respiratory diseases, and in extreme cases, even hurt your nervous system.

Seeing the mayhem unfold, researchers at the University of the West Indies (UWI) had a lightbulb moment: what if they could take all of that seaweed and somehow use it to power their vehicles? And so they did just that. And as it would turn out, sargassum could indeed be a lucrative source of biogas—yet another form of carbon-neutral alternative fuel.

We glossed over biogas in a previous story, about how Bajaj was eyeing the development of motorcycles powered by the stuff. And perhaps Bajaj might want to look at what’s going on in Barbados for some additional inspiration. In essence, biogas, much like natural gas, can be used to power internal combustion engines. But unlike its fossil fuel-derived counterparts, it’s completely renewable, as it makes use of organic material, in this case, the tons of sargassum washed up ashore.

And technically speaking, all types of biogas are considered carbon-neutral, as any and all of the emissions associated with their use have already been offset by the carbon absorption throughout the life cycle of the organic material.

Now, the scientists at UWI have made some significant advancements when it comes to extracting biogas from sargassum. By mixing in wastewater from local rum distilleries, as well as poop from the island’s blackbelly sheep which provides the anaerobic bacteria, scientists were able to come up with a biofuel that could power pretty much any vehicle.

In fact, the researchers state that any vehicle can be converted to run on sargassum gas via a simple conversion kit that takes just four hours to install, and costs around $2,500 USD. Pretty cool, right? 

UWI's official website shows the test vehicle in question, which interestingly, isn't an internal-combustion car, but rather, a fully electric Nissan Leaf. Now, as odd as it may seem, it's unlikely that the UWI scientists fitted an internal combustion engine into this EV. Instead, it's more than likely that the Leaf was charged using a generator powered by sargassum-derived gas. Now, I've reached out to the folks at UWI to confirm this, just to be sure, and I'll update this story once I hear back from them. 

Researchers at UWI have charged up a Nissan Leaf with biogas sourced from sargassum.

Now, the researchers at UWI secured a patent on their formula in 2019, and at present, are continuing developing and testing the sargassum-derived biogas. In the not-too-distant future, the team has plans of expanding its work by building its own biogas station to start scaling up the production of sargassum biogas. It also plans on introducing other sargassum-based innovations, too, such as pest control. Talk about turning trash into a national treasure.

So yeah, it looks like the big brained folks have once again cracked the code. But as is the case with all innovations, things take time, and it’ll take much more time, and not to mention money and resources, to get seaweed-based biogas to hit the mainstream.