Talk:Botryococcus braunii

Read this before making edits!
I was the founder of this article, and while I am not a professional biochemist, I do make great efforts to be accurate and complete in my presentation of information. Too many times, others have come in and made changes to this page without discussing the issue here first. Do Not Do This! - If you think something is incorrect, ask here in Talk first, and we'll try to straighten it out. Also, make sure that both during edits you are signed into your Wikipedia account and during chat you sign your comments with four tildes.

Edits that do not follow these guidelines will, from now, on, be reverted before further discussion! Bobkeyes (talk) 04:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)


 * IP editors are allowed to edit wikipedia. You do not WP:OWN this article, and all articles and editors are required to adhere to wikipedia policies, those policies include allowing IPs to edit. --Kleopatra (talk) 04:38, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

biodiesel vs. diesel
Bobkeyes 21:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC) Waitak, thanks your your encouragement and cleanup. However, your changes in the first paragraph makes the article incorrect. Botryococcus braunii oil is not cracked to biodiesel, but rather to diesel, gasoline, and kerosene. It is important to distinguish between origin (fossil or biological) and chemical makeup. The end-product of Botryococcus oil hydrocracking would chemically be indistinguishable from these fuels of fossil origin. This is one of the reasons why this algae has such great possibilities, as engines and processes currently using petroleum-derived fuels would not have to be modified. This is also one of the drawbacks, as the pollution caused by the burning of these petroleum-based fuels will still be present. I'll address this point in the article as it develops.

Perhaps I need to change the wording, to show that the chemicals produced are not biodiesel, but biologically derived exact replacements for petroleum fuels.

Seperate hydrocracking
Hydrocracking of the pufa's from botyrococcus braunii does not have anything to do with the species itself. I'm taking it out of the introduction and starting a new section. I don't care about deriving biofuels from this species of algae, my interest is in the biotechnical aspect of producing Omega 3 linolenic acids for pharmecuticals. The introduction should just describe the species itself, and not its potential uses.

Bobkeyes writes: Please identify yourself when making changes. From your IP address, it appears you are associated with Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Until you identify yourself, I will refer to you as GVSU. Also, I disagree with at least one of the changes you have made. In the introduction, you claim that Bb oils are not as useful in biofuel applications. Which oils are you comparing it to? Bb oil is indeed useful in fuel applications and this is well supported in research. However I do not know how well it is suited for trans-esterification. Additionally, you claim that Bb has a thick cell wall. Regardless of whether this is true or not, it is immaterial, as the major portion of the oil is extracellular. I think that your changes should be proposed here in the 'talk' section before you apply them. GVSU, please don't take offense at my comments - I hope we can agree on the structure of this article and I look forward to seeing anything you can add regarding pharmaceutical use of Bb.

Light intensity
It's strange to specify the light intensity for growing in W/m2 since that is ambiguous regarding spectrum and whether it is true irradiated intensity or rather electricity consumption. I searched a bit, and it appears that numbers of 30-60 W/m2 are often mentioned, but without access to most full-text articles I can't judge how those numbers are defined. I found one reference mentioning 1200 lux/m2. Han-Kwang 12:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Transesterifying Botryococcus braunii oils
Somehow I had not noticed what appears to be a glaring error. I do not believe that these oils can be transesterified the same way other algal oils often can be. Will the person that made this change (apparently from Grand Valley State University) please cite your source. Otherwise I am going to remove it, as it goes against everything I've ever read. Bobkeyes 04:11, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, without any defense of the claim that Bb oils can be transesterified to produce biodiesel, and much evidence to the contrary, I have removed this claim from the page. Bobkeyes 23:59, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


 * What is this "much evidence to the contrary"?  I think that any type of vegetable oil can be transesterified to make biodiesel and any type of vegetable oil can be feedstock for hydrocracking to make fuels.  Which ones would make economic sense and how much of which products you get will change with the variety.  Vincecate 11:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The claim that oil from this algae is special is not true. All vegetable oil is triglycerides which  is glyceride in which the glycerol is esterified with three fatty acids.  Any of these can be used as feedstock for hydrocracking or conversion to biodiesel.   Some would not make economic sense though. Vincecate 03:09, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Can you cite some authoritative sources Vincecate? I'll do some more research and see if you might be right. I'll be sure to cite sources regardless of the outcome. Bobkeyes (talk) 22:12, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * If you look at the wikipedia entry for vegetable oil it says they are triglycerides. Vincecate (talk) 01:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, look at Vegetable oil refining and follow links and you can see all kinds of vegetable oil can be used for hydrocracking. Vincecate (talk) 01:16, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


 * OK I did some research and have found information Botryococcenes are triterpenoids rather than triclygerides. See http://biochemistry.tamu.edu/?ch=faculty&sec=name&pp=devarenne source is Timothy P. Devarenne, Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Texas A&M University. So it appears I am correct. If you have sources that say botryococcenes are other than triterpenoids, please cite them and we'll try to sort it all out. Bobkeyes (talk) 22:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
 * That may just be between the cells. Vincecate (talk) 01:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * It does not say they are no triglycerides. (talk) 01:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the problem here is that the Botryococcene oil of Botryococcus braunii is not a typical vegetable oil, thus causing you (and others) to make invalid assumptions that they can be transesterified. From my recent email conversation with Professor Devarenne: "B. braunii does not make large amounts of fatty acids and thus fatty acids from B. braunii are not used for biofuel production. The oil from B. braunii, liquid hydrocarbons (botryococcenes), can not be esterified. they do not have a free oxygen group for esterification." Bobkeyes (talk) 04:29, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, seems so. Vincecate (talk) 07:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I now think the problem may be that triterpenoids are not vegetable oil at all. Do you have any source saying this is an oil?  Vincecate (talk) 10:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * So I checked with Timothy P. Devarenne and he said, "No, botryococcene triterpenes can not count as "vegetable oil". Vegetable oils are composed of fatty acids in the form of triglycerides. Botryococcenes are not fatty acids.  They are hydrocarbon oils made from the isoprenoid pathway." Vincecate (talk) 00:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Problems with the Botryococcenes table - reverting revision
69.110.29.204 had made a change, because there are two entries for C36H62, incorrectly guessing (apparently) that the figures had been incorrectly copied from the cited work and referred to a different botryococcene. This edit was done without consulting the cited work, which was probably because the link to it no longer functions. I have a PDF scan of the original, cited work and checked it - my transcription is correct. I wonder if there are two different isomers here that are being referred to? I think this needs to be reviewed by a chemist more qualified than myself, but I am reverting the changes to reflect the cited source in the meantime. 69.110.29.204 is a pacbell DSL line - will the person behind this IP address please create a wikipedia account and sign in when making changes, and remember to use the four tildes when posting comments? Thanks. Bobkeyes (talk) 07:53, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I have received verification from a respected professional biochemist (Prof. Timothy Devarenne) that my table is correct, and that I am correct in saying these represent two isomers. I have added a note to this effect to the page. Bobkeyes (talk) 04:20, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there any more information regarding the strand cultivated by Berkeley? why was it no ever used for commercial purposes?

Mr 74.69.121.84, you forgot to sign your question. But i'll answer that i don't now if anything happened with it, i suspect not, and probably because it wasn't really that much better of a performer than that which was already available. however, i wish ucBerkeley would make it available, now that the patent has expired. Perhaps someone should talk to them about it. Bobkeyes (talk) 06:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I found another patent-pending strain from the same scientist, and have added references to that section. But Dr. Nonomura and his company are an enigma, with no web presence I was able to find. Bobkeyes (talk) 05:25, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Seeking professional help
Thanks to an expert I had sought some time ago, a rather important error I made regarding the oils of Bb was caught and fixed. Thank you, professor Devarenne. I worry about how long this and some other technical errors have been able to exist without being corrected. It points to the folly of using wikipedia as one's sole source of information on such a topic. Still, I have found no better summary of Botryococcus braunii exists than this one. But I strive to make it better. I implore experts in the field of microbiology, phycology, and related fields to closely read this article for mistakes. But when you do find an error, explain it here in the discussion section and identify yourself and your expertise so you can be separated from the cranks. Thank you. Bobkeyes (talk) 00:38, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * "It points to the folly of using wikipedia as one's sole source of information on such a topic." - indeed! A Wikipedia article is only as good as its sources, and you can/should use those to verify what you find in the article. This is why an editors credentials don't matter, only the sources used to back up the edits. So, need to "identify yourself and your expertise" if you don't feel like it, just use good sources! Thanks for your effort here, Bobkeyes. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Soley Institute / AlgaeCenter.Com
For some reason, this company and its domains have ended up on the Wikipedia blacklist. Yet, the web site seems to be legit and seems to offer Bb and other microalgae. If there is some problem with the reputation of this company or some other issue, please address it here. Bobkeyes (talk) 00:02, 23 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I removed them all. What's the deal, a price list? Huh? That takes the spam-cakes of all! --Kleopatra (talk) 05:25, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Who the heck are YOU to arbitrarily decide what's spam?! It's useful information! Spam would be unwanted advertising by once company, which this is most certainly NOT! Anyone who thinks otherwise should discuss it here first, not just arbitrarily delete stuff. I will repair this vandalism. Kleopatra, Go away. Bobkeyes (talk) 03:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is not a sales catalog for any products. It is a general audience encyclopedia. You don't see advertisements or prices lists in other encyclopedias, and they don't belong here.
 * It's not vandalism; it's not arbitrary; you don't own this article. The price list will be removed. We can do it the easy way, or you can keep going like you are and wind up getting informed by others of the same thing in many ways. --Kleopatra (talk) 04:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Spam is a bold accusation that probably doesn't apply here, but vandalism even more so. There was absolutely no vandalism here at all. Please be more careful, Bobkeyes. Please, everyone, assume good faith. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Price lists on encyclopedia
Wikipedia is not a catalogue. The price list must be and will be removed from this article. --Kleopatra (talk) 04:14, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia and price lists

"Sales catalogs. Product prices should not be quoted in an article unless they can be sourced and there is a justified reason for their mention. In general, if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on the price of an object instead of just passing mention, this is an indication that its price may have encyclopedic significance. Prices listed by individual vendors, on the other hand, can vary widely from place to place and over time. Wikipedia is not a price comparison service to be used to compare the prices of competing products, or the prices of a single product from different vendors."
 * Bobkeyes edit summary says: "Can't we leave the article the way it was before there is some conclusion?" There is already a conclusion reached by community consensus and reflected on this policy page, WP:NOPRICES, quoted by Kleopatra. As far as I know noone has argued that the exceptions described there apply, nor other reasons for overriding this policy, so I will remove the price list again. Please do not add it back without explaining why WP:NOPRICES ought not to apply. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:26, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with ErikHaugen, that we shouldn't have price lists here. In addition to the obvious things like promotion, they just aren't written for the right audience. Something like This algae is cheaper than Spirulina or is used for X or can be produced by Y technique or things like that relate to prices and could be interesting. But not just a catalog. Kingdon (talk) 19:28, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess the idea of a 'community' is different in some people's eyes than in mne. The community I had in mind was the contributors and users of this page, not the rest of wikipedia, or this algae group. But I have no power in this, so people like Kleopatra and Haugen will go enforce the rules that someone, probably some committee, figured out and will now apply to all corners of the wikipedia realm, regardless of how those corners feel about such rules. Well, so be it. I created this page out of a perceived need, not to advertise myself or a product. I have no economic reason to want the contributions I made to stay. I must admit I do have a little bit of pride in creation, and my ego is hurt. But I can get over it. I'll just take my data unwanted by the Wikipedia chiefs-on-high and post it elsewhere. Go ahead then, wikipedia chiefs, modify the page to fit your needs. People who liked the page the way it was can go find the page I will create (link posted later) or view older versions of the page. Bobkeyes (talk) 19:47, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Those policies were made by community discussion and consensus, and this sort of is Kleopatra's "corner" anyway. But yeah, generally there is going to be a lot of resistance to one page or area doing something like this differently. I certainly don't question your motives for writing this article and nobody else should either. I appreciate the work you have done here; you should be proud of it, this is a very interesting article – thanks! ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

External links in the article
WP:ELPOINTS says: "External links should not normally be used in the body of an article." Many of the links should be formatted as references. I tried to make some of these changes but was reverted by User:Bobkeyes with no explanation. I will try the edit again; please discuss here if I'm doing it wrong. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:07, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Hydrocarbons outside of cell wall?
The intro currently states: "Compared to other green algae species it has a relatively thick cell wall that is accumulated from previous cellular divisions; making extraction of cytoplasmic components rather difficult. Fortunately, much of the useful hydrocarbon oil is outside of the cell." Does that imply that these things are secreting hydrocarbons then? If so, it seems like most of the current research efforts to efficiently break down the cell walls would be in vain. Does anyone have a reference on this? I found an article (Botryococcus braunii: a rich source for hydrocarbons and related ether lipids, P. Metzger . C. Largeau, 2005, Appl Microbiol Biotechnol) that shows some images, captioned "some refringent globules of lipids are ejected from the colonies by the pressure on the cover glass." Could it be that this effect has caused some people to wrongly assume Bb secretes lipids? Or is the original claim verifiable? Doogleface (talk) 18:46, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm deleting the claim from the intro. If someone has a good reason for bringing it back, please explain/cite your reasoning. Doogleface (talk) 18:53, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I found a good source for this. "up to ca. 7% of the botryococcene fraction was intracellular and that the remainder was located within the colonial matrix" from the abstract of this article here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0022-3646.1985.00388.x/abstract. I'll add the sentence back and try to add the reference, but I'm not very good with editing and I'd be cool if someone else wanted to do it Doogleface (talk) 15:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. Kingdon (talk) 02:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I should check the article more often, as I do have a source for this claim (otherwise I wouldn't have made it). Doogleface, thank you for your attention to the article, for following the requested proceedure for changes, and for finding out the statement was correct in the first place and restoring the article. Bobkeyes (talk) 20:26, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Grammar: Fish and Fishes
I reversed a change made yesterday, where someone replaced 'fishes' with 'fish'. Fish can refer to a single organism, a plural of unspecified types of organisms which resemble species 'fish', and, the species fish as a whole. When referring to multiple types of fish, as the article is, the proper term is 'fishes'. It was not shown that Bb created blooms were toxic to all fish, but several types of fish were tested, so the correct term is 'fishes'. However, if you're really insistent, and certain that you are right, you can go ahead and make the change and I won't reverse it again. It's not really worth a revision war. Bobkeyes (talk) 22:48, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Extraction of Oils
First major update in some time. yes, I know there's a lot of fixing that needs to be done, including citing some of things I claim such as hexane. I hope my writing is clear enough. Bobkeyes (talk) 05:55, 16 July 2017 (UTC)