fairfolio
Saved Projects

Removing Nitrogenous Waste from an Ecosystem

CSEF · 2016 Environmental Engineering

Oliver W. LaCapria · Villa Park High School, Villa Park, Orange County

Overview

Objectives/Goals In my experiment, I set out to find the most efficient way of removing nitrogenous waste from an ecosystem. Methods/Materials I set up 7 jars: the first was a control, with neither nitrifying bacteria nor plants, the second and third had nitrifying bacteria only, the fourth and fifth had both plants and bacteria, and the sixth and seventh had only plants. Each day, I added .5 mL of ammonium hydroxide. Then, 24 hours later I would measure the pH, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels. This experimentation lasted 12 days. Results All jars, except for the control, were able to remove all forms of nitrogenous waste. This was unexpected in the jar with plants only and in the jar with bacteria only, but I attribute this to contamination of nitrifying bacteria and algae/cyanobacteria, respectively. Conclusions/Discussion I found the most effective way to remove nitrogenous waste from an ecosystem. By using a combination of plants and nitrifying bacteria, ammonia, a toxic compound produced by aquatic organisms, can be completely removed from water. This is applicable directly to the aquaculture industry, accounting for 50% or more of seafood consumed annually. By establishing a biological filtration system based on the model ecosystems I designed, one can keep the levels of nitrogenous waste in the water nontoxic to the organisms living there.

Summary statement

I found the most effective combination of organisms in the nitrogen cycle to remove nitrogenous waste from an ecosystem, which was through an ecosystem with both a nitrate-absorbing autotroph and nitrifying bacteria present.

Help received

I designed the ecosystems, routine of experimentation, and performed calculations myself. However, Mrs. Corbett, the AP Chemistry teacher at Villa Park High School, and Mr. Hunt, the AP Biology teacher at Villa Park High School, were both very helpful by explaining concepts critical to my experiment.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2016 Environmental Engineering · Entry S1012

Resources

Related projects

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

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google