CO2 and the Greenhouse Effect: Can Highly Efficient Freshwater Phytoplankton (Algae) Reverse a Potentially Deadly Proces

Overview

Objectives/Goals The basis of this project was to determine which algal species produces the most Oxygen, thereby removing an equal amount of Carbon Dioxide by means of Photosynthesis. Methods/Materials This two-part eight week study was conducted using a self-designed apparatus. The apparatus consisted of a 250 mL I.V. bag that connected to tubing. The tubing was then connected to a 100 mL gas measuring tube through a rubber stopper. Once the apparatus was constructed, 5 different 25%/100 mL algal cultures were injected into each I.V. bag along with 100 mLs of pond water and 50 mLs of a 2.5 % Sodium Bicarbonate solution. After all of the six assemblies were prepared (this includes a control) they were placed into an Environmental Chamber. The algae were allowed to photosynthesize for a period of two weeks, for 10 hours a day. Once the two week period concluded a syringe was used to measure the amount of Oxygen produced. Then each culture was extracted from the I.V. bag and the percent transmittance was determined through the use of a spectrophotometer. This experiment was repeated twice with two of each algal culture in each experiment; this totaled to four sets of data for each algal culture. Results From the data acquired from both two week studies Oscillatoria was determined to be the species that performed the best. Oscillatoria boasted a production series of {4.5,5.0,4.8,5.0} mL of oxygen (O(2)), while the next highest producer, Volvox, produced a respectable {4.7,4.7,4.7,4.6} mL of O2 throughout the experiment. Spirogyra was the third most productive producer, producing {4.6,4.2,3.8,4.2} mL of O(2). Chlorella and Anabaena were the least productive with an O(2) output of {2.0,1.8,1.9,1.5} and {1.8,1.9,1.6,1.7} mL of oxygen respectively. The Chi#s Square method indicated that Oscillatoria performed much better than all the other species with a 99.0% confidence level. Conclusions/Discussion The final analysis showed that Oscillatoria consistently outperformed all of the other algal species. One of the possible explanations may be that Oscillatoria has the most efficient chloroplast. Oscillatoria must have an enzyme that is more effective at binding/transferring energy. This superior enzyme binds energy from the chloroplast to the H(2)O molecules to split them much more efficiently. If this enzyme were manipulated the efficiency of photosynthesis in an algal cell could be greatly improved.

Awards (1)

• Category Award

Competition history

• CSEF 2004 Environmental Engineering · Entry S0899

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Environmental Engineering projects
• CSEF Environmental Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2004 project