Stormwater Treatment Plug Flow Algal Photobioreactor Towers could be used to Fight Climate Change, Plastic Pollution and Harmful Algal Blooms in Florida

Abstract Submission: In 2022, 37.15 billion tons of C02 was released into the atmosphere. In 2019, the total phosphorus (TP) load to Lake Okeechobee was 442 metric tons (t). According to Greenpeace only around 5% of over 50 million tons of plastic waste produced by US households in 2021 was recycled. These three facts are an opportunity for entrepreneurship in the great state of Florida. In Florida, Storm water treatment areas (STA’s), are artificial wetlands modeled as dispersed plug flow reactors and built to absorb runoff nutrients. Several of them are south of the Everglades Agricultural Area and samples taken from surrounding waters show that the minimum of 10 ppb phosphate concentration set by WRDA is not being reached. This means that the STAs of Florida are fighting a losing battle. If STA’s were built vertically as a Photobioreactor (PBR) Tower made of millions of borosilicate glass tubes, filled with algae, fed with flue gas and powered from a unrecyclable plastic waste-to-energy plant with an optimal CO2 concentration, and a fed high nutrient substrate from Lake Okeechobee all three problems listed above could be solved cost and energy efficiently with higher loads and with a smaller land footprint. Using parameters from existing studies a Helical Photobioreactor was sized using a Plug Flow reaction and a material balance model. The results showed that to offset the largest coal power plant in the US’s yearly CO_2 output, 200x200x200ft of plug flow reaction could be built. Theoretically any larger volume would mean that the HPBR would not only sequester all the CO2 from a flue gas source, but an extra amount depending on the extra volume of plug flow reaction. Further experimentation is needed to achieve geometric, kinematic and dynamic similarity between model and prototype.

Learning Objectives/Expected Outcome (Optional) : I am writing a paper that uses parameters from existing research papers to size a reactor and to calculate a proposed material balance for the reactor and its corresponding waste water treatment unit operations and processes. Unfortunately there is no experimental data on the actual entire system itself, but I was thinking plugging accepted parameters into the analytical plug flow model and producing results will be a starting point for an abstract for this category and counts as interim research results. My calculations and a material balance would be included in the final research paper.