“Algae: A remedy to the grave global warming problem?” 

ABSTRACT

Background:

Photosynthetic organisms (such as algae) are organisms that use sunlight, carbon dioxide and

water to create sugar which is used in cellular respiration to create ATP, the fuel used by living

things. So these organisms can potentially be used to stop or slow down the effects of global

warming as they consume carbon dioxide and in return produce oxygen that is essential for

human life.

Objectives:

The basis of this project was to determine whether algal species can help in reducing the

greenhouse effect. As the research went on, I became more intrigued by the topic and so

started testing different types of algae which was followed by examining the effect of different

nutrients on the efficiency of algae as absorbers of carbon dioxide.

Methods/Materials:

This three-part study was done over a period of eight weeks and was conducted using self-

designed apparatus. The apparatus consisted of a 250 mL intravenous bag whose tubing was

connected to 100mL gas measuring cylinder.

In the initial study, Oscillatoria algae was used. Algal cultures were injected into the IV bag

which contained 100mL of pond water and 0.025M Iron (ІІІ) Nitrate solution to culture and

maintain the algae. After it had been prepared it was placed in the chamber, allowing the algae

to photosynthesize. Algae was allowed to synthesize over a period of 5 days, 12 hours a day,

after which a syringe was used to measure the amount of oxygen that had been produced

during the reaction. The experiment was then repeated with the same algae to take another

reading and average out the error.

For the second study, the same procedure was followed. But the experiment was also repeated

on two other types of algae i.e. so that their efficiency could be compared with each other.

The third study was done to examine the effect of different nutrients i.e. Sodium bicarbonate

and Iron (ІІІ) Nitrate on the efficiency of the reaction.

Results:

The results were easy to analyze as the algae culture that would have produced the highest

amount of oxygen would have absorbed the most amount of carbon dioxide as well. The algal

species that was used first i.e Oscillatoria was found to be the most efficient as it produced

6.2mL and 7.5mL of oxygen in the two respective experiments. Coccolithophorid was second as

 

it produced 5.9mL and 5.1mL of oxygen, followed by Cholorella that was least efficient with an

output of just 1.9mL and 2.1mL of oxygen.

The third study that also used Oscillatoria as the algae culture showed that Iron (ІІІ) Nitrate 

solution performed better then the Sodium Carbonate solution as it produced 6.2mL and 7.5mL

respectively, while Sodium Carbonate solution only did 4.8mL and 5.0mL.

Conclusions/Discussion:

The final analysis shows that no doubt algae can help in the reduction of Carbon dioxide

concentration which is aided by the use of nutrients. Oscillatoria consistently outperformed all

of the other algal species may be because it had the most efficient chloroplast.

Considering the fact that the bio-fixation of carbon dioxide was successful, it can be potentially

used for various purposes ranging from geo-engineering to having algae farms as they can

contribute in pacifying the global warming problem. Though, nutrients should be essentially

added to water as it raises the efficiency of algae to absorb more carbon dioxide as is shown by

the experiments conducted.