OriginOil Inc. is in the business of creating oil from the unlikeliest of sources: algae. Not unlike the greenish slime that grows in a stagnant swimming pool.

Last week, the company invited members of the National Algae Association to its Adams Boulevard headquarters to show off its newest product: the algae appliance, which separates algae from the water in which it grows and breaks apart algae cells to release the tiny particles of oil inside.

“There are lots of people growing algae. Our technology is in processing that,” said OriginOil Chief Executive Riggs Eckelberry. “We’re in extraction and post-processing.”

The algae appliance sucks up specially engineered forms of algae in water and runs the mixture through pipes that bombard it with gentle electromagnetic pulses. The pulses break apart the algae cell walls and make the cells cling to one another, helping separate algae from the water.

The resulting sludge is called algae crude, which in turn can be processed into bio crude. That product can be processed by regular oil refineries into petroleum products including diesel and jet fuel.

But turning algae crude into bio crude is hard to do in large quanities. OriginOil’s next project is working with the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory to build a system that does just that.

Crude oil is made from algae and other plant life that was buried under thousands of feet of soil and rock, creating a high-heat, high-pressure environment that after millions of years yields a precious energy resource. Eckelberry said the system being developed by OriginOil and the laboratory aims to do the same, but in weeks instead of eons.