Cross-disciplinary algae photobioreactor wins award

A cross-disciplinary project involving the Pharmabees team, the School of Physics and the School of Engineering has been recognised in the Engineers in Business Fellowship prizes.

The Pharmabees team is well known for its innovative offshoots, from the idea of using honey as an aerosol to treat lung infections to setting up beehives and pollinator patches in hospital grounds to producing beers made from ingredients with antimicrobial activities, and their latest venture follows in this tradition.

Stemming from the CALIN-funded Our Climate Classroom project , born from a School of Pharmacy collaboration and which teaches primary school children about climate change using a suite of lesson plans including experiments based around the carbon capturing nature of algae (or, more precisely, cyanobacteria) academic lead Professor Les Baillie considered spreading the message farther afield.

Teaming up with colleagues in the Schools of Engineering and Physics he co-lead a student project based around the creation of an “Algae Photobioreactor,” using cyanobacteria to capture carbon from the atmosphere whilst at the same time highlighting the issue of climate change and how innovative science can help offset its worst effects.

This device, still in its planning phase,  will eventually be scaled up and sit outside Cardiff University’s Main Building possibly  in the shape of a dragon, with the cyanobacteria species Arthrospira platensis photosynthesizing inside, drawing carbon from the atmosphere far more efficiently than a tree of a similar size. When the device becomes full of the replicating organisms they can be harvested off and reduced to carbon pellets whilst the photobioreactor begins the process of drawdown again. The pellets can then be used in industry for polymers or biofuels, or even used as a superfood. They can also be safely stored away from the atmosphere.

From the School of Pharmacy’s initial idea, Hajira Irfan, Harry Parkinson and Benny Drury, enthusiastic students in Engineering and Physics, built a prototype and entered it into the Engineers in Business Fellowship awards, where they won the Big Ideas prize worth £3000 as well as the pre-show public vote for £500.

Professor Baillie said, “This is a nice examples of students from different disciplines working together to tackle real world challenges such as climate change."

The photobioreactor is an excellent example of the inter-disciplinary nature of the Pharmabees team and science more widely, demonstrating tangible results from the cross-pollination of different scientific fields.