Solix CEO Doug Henston said the technology is a good fit for his company, which relies on advanced, proprietary engineering to produce algae more efficiently and lower production costs.

Rather than grow algae in open ponds, Solix uses closed production systems that act as “photo-bioreactors” in which the algae absorb about five times more light.

“We get like seven times more productivity than with open ponds because we can control the system, including temperature and nutrients,” Henston said. “It’s monoculture, without exposure to atmospheric matter that can blow into ponds.”

Henston co-founded the company in 2006 with Willson, an engineering professor and founder of Colorado State University’s Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory.

Solix has raised more than $20 million in private equity from a variety of investors, including the Southern Ute tribe and Valero Energy Corp. It operates a pilot algae-to-oil facility at Fort Collins, and it opened a commercial demonstration plant at the Ute reservation in July.

Willson said LANL technology will be integrated into the Ute facility once it’s perfected, but that might take more than two years.

LANL’s previous work on applying acoustics to biotechnology led to one major commercial success through former New Mexico startup Acoustic Cytometry Systems, which was sold last year to California-based life sciences giant Invitrogen Corp.

This is LANL’s fourth biofuel-related research and development agreement with private companies, said José Olivares, deputy division leader of LANL’s Bioscience Division. The laboratory has stepped up research on biofuels in recent years.