Summary of Significant Accounting Policies - Additional Information (Detail) (USD $)	12 Months Ended						12 Months Ended					1 Months Ended			12 Months Ended
	Dec. 31, 2012 Customer	Dec. 31, 2011	Dec. 31, 2010	Dec. 31, 2012 Allowance for Sales Returns	Dec. 31, 2011 Allowance for Sales Returns	Dec. 31, 2012 Product	Dec. 31, 2012 One customer	Dec. 31, 2012 Accounts Receivable Customer	Dec. 31, 2011 Accounts Receivable Customer	Dec. 31, 2012 Letter of Credit	Dec. 31, 2011 Letter of Credit	Dec. 16, 2010 Solazyme Roquette Joint Venture	Apr. 02, 2012 Solazyme Bunge Jv	May 31, 2011 Solazyme Bunge Jv	Dec. 31, 2012 Algenist Product Sales	Dec. 31, 2012 Algenist Product Sales Minimum	Dec. 31, 2012 Algenist Product Sales Maximum	Dec. 16, 2010 Parent Company Solazyme Roquette Joint Venture	Apr. 02, 2012 Parent Company Solazyme Bunge Jv
Related Party Transaction [Line Items]
Ownership percentage												50.00%	49.90%					50.00%	50.10%
Joint venture agreement date												Dec. 16, 2010	Apr. 02, 2012
Certificate of deposit in other long term assets										$ 300,000	$ 300,000
Payment terms for sales of Algenist products from invoice date															30 days
Payment terms for sales of Algenist products from end of month date																30 days	45 days
Doubtful accounts reserved	0	0
Number of concentrated customers with accounts receivables								5	8
Accounts receivable concentrated percentage								96.00%	97.00%
Gross account receivable related to product sales						2,300,000
Asset impairment charges for long-lived assets	0	0
Warrants to purchase a number of common stock														1,000,000
Exercise price of the warrant														13.50
Total revenues in segment reporting	44,100,000	39,000,000	38,000,000
Number of customers right to return excess inventory	1
Right to return excess inventory maximum days							120 days
Algenist products life	3 years
Customer return policies minimum	30 days
Customer return policies maximum	90 days
Reserve for product returns				1,100,000	700,000
Advertising expense	$ 2,600,000	$ 1,400,000	$ 0
Expected dividend yield	0.00%