Our Spirulina has really proliferated which presents a new problem: how to harvest it? So I’ve been figuring out how much and how best to extract the biomass. Chlorella seems much more difficult to harvest.
Successful growth with blue-green algae
I continued to research microalgae growth with urine (citations updated) and fertilized a batch of algae with urine. Spirulina grows in a more basic medium, and will die if too much urine is introduced, so I added 8.5mL to about 850mL of Spirulina medium for a 1:100 ratio. I added 10mL to the Chlorella medium for about a 1:50 ratio. I also found some evidence that Chorella can grow in a solution of urine and water, so I’m trying this as well at about a 1:28 ratio.
additional mason jars fertilized with urine
Spirulina
Final Form
I’ve been struggling to figure what I will build for the final next week. I loved the Drink.Pee.Drink.Pee.Drink.Pee installation and DIY kit Bray & Riley assembled. They created struvite, a recycling phosphate fertilizer I came across when I first started research phosphorus pollution, by adding magnesium chloride to the pee. The reaction separates the solution into struvite and water almost instantly. I wonder if the same effect can be achieved by using algae (it would certainly take longer)?
I realized I could actually produce a urine-based algae-growing solution presented in a way similar to the Algohol idea I had at the beginning of the semester (like as a champagne-algae fountain? Or just a fancy bottle?). I bought some materials to experiment with–I wanted to create a fountain where instead of drinking you could observe the algae with a stereoscope microscope, but I quickly realized making a stereoscope microscope, or even just a stereoscope or a microscope within the design of the fountain quickly complicated things. Since there’s only a week left in class, I won’t try to figure this out unless there’s time.
If the fountain also functioned to grow the algae, it would need to incorporate a grow light–which presents it’s own problems. It shouldn’t be directly next to the algae, and I’m pretty sure it would be bad for people’s eyes. How could they view it safely, by say, turning on an LED closer to the top of the device, while avoiding any dangerous consequences of looking at a grow light?
I’m concerned also with the materials to be used in a project like this. Maybe I can create an algae fountain from recycled materials from the floor? While I like this a lot, I don’t know if this weakens the cohesiveness of the concept. Maybe the ideas are connected in that we’re creating new things to consume from our waste?
One idea is to recycling the acrylic chunks that accumulate at ITP this time of year to build parts of the fountain, although I think I would need to dissolve them in acetone, which isn’t the best. People do this to create acrylic glues so I don’t see why I couldn’t form it into something. Or perhaps use it to create waterproof cardboard.
A bit of a joke would be:
