This past fall, our project group formed and started formulating ideas on what our reactor would look like. Before we could actually get started on building our reactor, however, we needed to familiarize ourselves with algal growth and under what conditions algae grew best. So we set up several experiments in the courtyard of Wurster Hall with varying conditions in different bottles to test how algae growth responded. Our experimental setup in the Wurster Courtyard. Figure 1 shows the growth in the bottles after seven days outside, while Figure 2 shows the growth in the bottles after 10 days of growth. Significant growth was shown after about two weeks in some bottles. Platform 1: Plastic bottle that started out with a high algae concentration. Most significant growth was shown in this bottle with much biomass forming on the sides/top of the bottle. Platform 2: Glass bottles were used for this platform. Each bottle started out with one scoop of algae, but the bottle on the left was given a small pinch of sugar and yeast to produce carbon dioxide. As the second image shows, much more growth was shown in that bottle. Platform 3: A case where too much sugar and yeast was added to a bottle. This bottle grew minimal algae and started to form an orange layer on the top with a foul smell. Platforms 4, 5, 6: More variables test here including fertilizer (far left with red ring on top) and no reflector surface (middle images). Some bottles were capped or left uncapped to see what atmospheric exposure would do for algal growth. The far right images had a reflector wall set up to maximize solar rays hitting the bottles. All images on the top row were taken after seven days and all on the bottom row after ten days.
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SUSTAINABLE ALGAE PHOTOBIOREACTORThe Sustainable Algae Photobioreactor Project is one of the various projects developed through the UC Berkeley division of Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW). A special thanks to The Green Initiative Fund (TGIF) here at UC Berkeley for providing the grant to make this project possible.
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