U.S. green energy specialist Sapphire Energy has teamed up with German gases and engineering giant Linde to commercialize its new industrial scale process to convert algae biomass into crude oil.

Along the route to an industrial scale operation, the companies will refine the Sapphire hydrothermal treatment process and test it in a pilot plant. At a subsequent stage in the intended five-year cooperation, they plan to jointly market the technology for use with a variety of feedstocks including municipal solid waste and farm waste in addition to algae.

The partnership builds on a two-year cooperation in which Linde and Sapphire developed a low cost CO₂ management system for open pond algae-to-fuel production. As part of the deal the German group, which claims the status of leading merchant CO₂ supplier in the U.S., became the exclusive supplier of CO₂ for Sapphire Energy's Green Crude Farm, a demonstration plant for the algae-to-energy route at Columbus, New Mexico.