Scientists hope to turn algae into marketable goods
From afar, Bivens Arm looks like a lovely urban lake. But on closer look, the water is a putrid green — visible evidence of a lake loaded with nutrients washed into it from runoff.
But maybe a different kind of green — money — will become a hallmark of Bivens if the algae can be removed and made into something useful and marketable.
That is the goal of the global engineering firm AECOM, which makes algae-extractor machinery. AECOM this week set up a demonstration on Bivens’ bank for University of Florida scientists and staff from the St. Johns River Water Management District and Alachua County Environmental Protection Department.
“What we do is infrastructure — we design, build and operate the system,” said Dan Levy, AECOM vice president for environment in the Americas. “We have all of this algae — biomass — coming out. We have vendors that we have been talking to that use algae to make biofoam, plastics, fertilizers...The thought is, if we are getting the biomass out, let’s find a use for it.”
The extractor was set up on a homeowner’s property on the west side of Bivens, the lake that is visible off Southwest 13th Street at the Wyndham Garden hotel and Chop Stix restaurant.
Lake water was pumped into the machine. Through the use of non-toxic chemicals and air pressure to create bubbles, the tiny particles of nutrients glom together into mats of biomass on the water’s surface. The mats are skimmed off and the clear water is piped back into the lake.
Levy said AECOM systems were used to remove nutrients this summer from algal blooms on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts that occurred when Lake Okeechobee water was released to prevent flooding.
Among those at the demonstration was Ann Wilkie, a UF professor of bioenergy and sustainable technology. She is an expert in biogas — turning organic waste into fuel.
Wilkie said biomass for commercial use can be grown in labs and produced for particular purposes. The biomass removed from water bodies is referred to as “wild” and can vary depending on the amount of nutrients at any given time.
That can be a problem in supplying material to a manufacturer of items that use biomass.
“Once you have the harvested biomass, the question is, what can you do with it to try to make a commercial product? When you grow pure cultures of algae like we do, you are growing it for a particular market or end product,” Wilkie said. “Here, what you have is wild algae, so you don’t know what you’ve got. Therefore you need to select a product. Perhaps it could be used as a fertilizer. The second thing, which would be fairly inspirational, is to take the algae...and generate renewable gas. The algae could be digested to produce a local source of gas.”
Erich Marzolf, director of SJRWMD’s Division of Water and Land Resources, was interested in a different end product of the AECOM system — the water that is returned to the lake after the biomass is removed.
Nutrient loading is heavy in some lakes, including Bivens and Newnans. Marzolf said he is interested in any system that can cut the nutrients.
“We’re always looking for new tools to remove nutrients from water bodies — tools that can hasten recovery is of interest,” Marzolf said. “We have two tools we use at Lake Apopka to remove nutrients and we’re curious about others — how they work, how cost effective they are, are they another tool in the toolbox? If this works (in Bivens), great.”
Several canisters at the demonstration site had pellets and powder made from biomass that can be used as fertilizer or products such as shoes — a pair of Vivobarefoot shoes made of biomass was on the table.
Cocoa Beach’s Kelly Slater, the greatest competitive surfer in history with 11 world titles, works with a company to make traction pads out of algae. Some companies are making surfboards of biofoam from algae.
“Vivobarefoot has these shoes but Adidas, Nike, Billabong — there are about two dozen manufacturers now that are buying biofoam,” Levy said. “This is just an example of what is being done in the industry. We wanted to show that in addition to fertilizer and biofuels, there are products. And next year there are going to be even more applications coming out.”