Student research team AlgaeUnlocked was given the opportunity to study algae and its impact on crop cultivation on the Moon and Mars and present it in a national competition.
The team will participate in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2023-25 Algae Awards Contest to see how algae can capture and use carbon dioxide and whether algae has positive benefits for agriculture. was allowed to do so.
The team consists of lead professor Scott Hamliton Brehm and SIU students Hannah Phillips, Alex Bechtel, Chatan Singh, Alyssa Zhang, and Danielle Snyder. This team ranks in the top 15 out of 50 teams nationwide.
“The key was to find an efficient way to treat the algae, because current methods are expensive, time-consuming, and likely use a lot of water,” Zhang said. “OHD (oxidative hydrothermal dissolution) circumvents much of that, and we are also looking at the potential use of this processed algae as a biofuel or biostimulant.”
The official summary of the competition states: “The resulting dissolved microalgae biomass is biochemically and chemically usable for applications that clearly demonstrate the feasibility of combining this new technology with the microalgae industry. ” is stated.
The team is currently competing at the Algae Biomass Summit in Houston from October 20th to 22nd and Golden, Colorado from April 11th to 13th for a chance to make it to the final five teams in the competition. We are raising funds to join the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
“We have a biostimulant that we can apply to the crop, so we’re doing some field work on corn and we just finished that on Saturday,” Bechtel said. “Soybean research testing soy cultivation on Mars and lunar regolith is nearing completion, as is agriculture on the Moon and Mars.”
Regolith is the rock, dust, and other material that covers the surfaces of moons and planets.
Soybeans are grown on regolith, the perfect chemical composition of the Moon and Mars, with some containing biostimulants and others growing normally without. This is the same regolith that NASA uses to test spacecraft.
The research corn will be grown on SIU’s farm, and the soybeans will be grown in a greenhouse in the Life Sciences III building.
OHD is a process that uses heat and oxygen to break down carbon chains in biomass, Bechtel said. Algae can be broken down into natural substances and resources.
Bechtel said the biomass is turned into a slurry, pressured to 2,000 psi (pounds per square inch) and heated to 280 degrees Celsius. Once heated, add the oxidizing agent and concentrate everything at once. With this system in place, you can work quickly and continuously.
Zhang believes that using OHD damages the outermost membrane of algae cells, allowing them to access the cells more quickly than they naturally break down over time, allowing them to be used in the realm of bioirritants. It said that the bioavailability of its ingredients is increased.
The key is to see if biostimulants can increase yield.
“So the two studies on soybean and corn are a little different. Soybean has almost no additional fertilizers other than what was already in the substrate or in the OHD product,” Zhang said. Said. “The control and experimental corn fields were fertilized with liquid ammonia as usual before planting.”
The website summary for the Algae Prize competition states that the aim is to challenge students to expand their knowledge of solutions to algae production and development into mainstream useful resources.
The ABO Summit is one of the largest events for algae and seaweed experts to obtain and present new research results on the use of algae with carbon dioxide and other environmental concerns.
“Just for being in the top 15, we get $10,000, which goes toward paying for the algae to be treated by our support company, Thermaquatica,” said Hamilton Brehm. said. “If you finish in the top five, you’ll get an extra $10,000. If you make it to Grand Champion, you’ll get another $15,000, but to get to that point you need to raise money now.”
Hamilton Brehm said he will give a presentation to all summit attendees and Adobe companies to show off the processed algae.
“The whole world, the Adobe companies, and maybe a little academia, and everything else. But algae has been like an old promise since the 1950s, 1960s. It was heralded like this. , it would be great to be able to do all these great things,” Hamilton Brehm said. “Here we are. We couldn’t make it work in 2024.”
Because algae are liquid plants, they are thought to be better able to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, Hamilton Brehm said. Given the amount of nutrients that algae contains, it could also be used as food.
“If you just put the algae there, the algae probably won’t release its nutrients there. It won’t be available to the factory,” Hamilton Brehm said. “So OHD is going to pry them open. Now it’s like liquid fuel in a factory.”
If this can help the plant grow, it could be a harmless self-fulfilling cycle.
“We’re going to do more greenhouse research, but we’re going into winter, so we have to worry about the seasons,” Hamilton Brehm said. “If it’s profitable, for example by forcing farmers to pick five more bushels of corn or soybeans or whatever, then it’s worth it.”
The latest competition information can be found on the Algae Prize website page.
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Jamilah Lewis can be reached at (email protected). To stay up to date on all the news from Southern Illinois, follow The Daily Egyptian on Facebook. Twitter.
