Recently Mississippi State University (MSU) has been conduction research to increase the ability of bacteria to accumulate oil. This work was ultimately targeted towards providing an alternative method of producing oil in contrast to that of chemical liquid extraction which is the primary method practiced today. The purpose of this oil is to serve as a feed material for biodiesel (or other oil based fuels).

To ensure that the developing oil accumulation technology is economically completive new methods are required to release the oil from the cell membrane. One technology being considered is Electroporation (EP). EP is a technology that has traditionally been utilized to as a way to introduce substance into cells (such as loading cells with molecular probes). Pores are formed as voltage is passed across the membrane and it exceeds its dielectric strength. In contrast to introducing substances it is hypothesized that these voltage induced pores will provide an outlet for the oil from the cell membrane. This should improve the recovery of the hyper-accumulated lipids by the cell.

This paper will present describe the apparatus being currently being utilized in the laboratory to conduct electroporation investigations as well as the results generated to date. Preliminary results are quite promising indicating that solutions up to 30% oil can be generated.