Algae Mat Cleans Polluted Water by Pulsing Water Like a Coral Reef

Innovation: Industry

HydroMentia Inc

1993

Image: Barb Canale / Unsplash / CC BY SA - Creative Commons Attribution + ShareAlike

Detoxification/Purification of Air/Water/Waste

Ecosystems must be effective at cleaning air, water, and waste because so much of what is in the air, water, and waste is valuable to organisms as resources. In contrast to functions that detoxify or purify at the organism level, this is at a larger scale. To be effective at the ecosystem level, it isn’t the individual efforts of a few organisms that detoxifies and purifies, but the actions of a wide diversity of organisms each contributing to the whole. For example, as water flows through an ecosystem, either aboveground or in the soil, a diversity of organisms take different actions to slow it down, capture excess nutrients from it, and break down harmful chemicals into more benign ones.

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Chemically Break Down Organic Compounds

The vast majority of biochemical assembly and breakdown processes–even by the most complex organisms–occur within cells. In fact, cells are able to perform hundreds, even thousands of chemical transformations at the same time under life-friendly conditions (ambient temperature and pressure in an aqueous environment). Part of the reason that decomposition reactions (chemical breakdown) can occur under such mild conditions is because most often, they occur in a stepwise, enzyme-mediated fashion, sipping or releasing small amounts of energy at each step. For example, the breakdown of glucose to pyruvate–and the release of energy–occurs in the 10-step enzyme catalyzed process of glycolysis.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Liquids

The most common liquid used by living systems is water, which they require to survive. But there are many other liquids that provide nourishment, play a role in defense mechanisms, or serve other purposes. Water varies in its availability; it is sometimes plentiful and sometimes very scarce or only available as fog or mist. To minimize the energy required to capture, absorb, or filter liquids, living systems have strategies that take advantage of the unique properties of the given liquid. For example, water moves from a gaseous to liquid state when it encounters a surface colder than the air. Plants in forests that experience fog and clouds more than rain have strategies that condense liquid water from moist air.

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Chemical Entities

Living systems often require chemical elements and chemical compounds, including complex sugars, proteins, and odor-making compounds, to perform critical activities. These compounds exist in various states–solid, liquid, and gas–and are ubiquitous in soil, water, and air. This requires that living systems not only have ways to capture, absorb, or filter them, but also ways to differentiate among them, selecting those that are valuable or harmful. For example, mangrove trees live with their roots in salty water and sediments. Various mangrove species have different strategies for removing salt from the water they take in so that their tissues can use the fresh water.

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Brochures

Patents

Algal Turf Scrubber from Hydromentia pulses water to stimulate algal growth, creating an efficient environment for pollutant removal.

Benefits

Reduced nutrient pollution
Reduced nutrient toxicity
Natural
Cost-effective
Sustainable

Applications

Domestic and agricultural wastewater
Stormwater treatment
Lake restoration

UN Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Goal 6: Clean Water & Sanitation
Goal 11: Sustainable Cities & Communities

Bioutilization

Bacteria
Diatoms
Algae

The Challenge

Nutrient pollution is an incredibly challenging and costly environmental problem. It is caused by excess nitrogen and phosphorus in the air and water, often as a result of fertilizer runoff from crops. Nutrient pollution has impacted many streams, rivers, lakes, bays and coastal waters for the past several decades, resulting in serious environmental and human health issues, and impacting the economy.

Innovation Details

The Algal Turf Scrubber® system cleans pollutant-laden water by pulsing water down a sloped substrate to stimulate algal growth, similarly to coral reefs. The algae remove nutrient pollutants, including phosphorus and nitrogen, from the water. The algae also produce pure oxygen as a byproduct, which can be used aquatic organisms and also helps to breakdown other toxic chemicals, such as lead and mercury. The algal mat can then be harvested and processed into marketable commodities such as soil-enhancing compost or biofuel feedstock.

Biological Model

The use of algae to remove nutrient pollution is . However, the Algal Turf Scrubber also mimics coral reef wave action by pulsing water over the algae. Coral reefs have a dense, biodiverse turf of filamentous algae that cover roughly 40% of their surfaces. Many coral reefs rhythmically pulse water over the algae, which enhances water and nutrient mixing, stimulating algal growth. It also prevents refiltration of water by neighboring polyps and enhances the coral’s .

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