New technology for active CO2 removal?

[moretor1]

Saw this article today and thought it looked pretty cool

Researchers harvest acid from seawater to feed beneficial algae

From the air you breathe to the seafood you eat, marine algae have some involvement—they consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen through photosynthesis and feed fish and shellfish. One day, marine algae could also be used to make widely available eco-friendly plastics or fuel.

phys.org

From what I understand it uses bipolar membrane electrodialysis

What does that mean exactly? Not a clue

From what I can understand it's like a combination between an active heat exchanger and rodi system.

Maybe alternating currents to force ions through the membrane or something??

I could definitely see some hobby applications for this if it ever became cost effective

 

[KrisReef]

Title: "Researchers Harvest Acid..."

I am weary of the CO2 (or "Acid") is destroying the planet train. Still, there is a lot of innovation going on to harvest energy other than fossil fuels. Does anyone else see a potential for bad results from researchers harvesting CO2 from the ocean to feed microbes that have been genetically modified to make energy or plastics, or medicine, or ???

Thanks for sharing. I didn't read the article, just the title blurb and maybe I will read it tomorrow?

 

[moretor1]

Title: "Researchers Harvest Acid..."

I am weary of the CO2 (or "Acid") is destroying the planet train. Still, there is a lot of innovation going on to harvest energy other than fossil fuels. Does anyone else see a potential for bad results from researchers harvesting CO2 from the ocean to feed microbes that have been genetically modified to make energy or plastics, or medicine, or ???

Thanks for sharing. I didn't read the article, just the title blurb and maybe I will read it tomorrow?

Yeah I don't know enough about ocean acidification but I'm fairly sure it's a but overhyped by pop science.

Even the article itself acknowledges that microalgae increases to consume the excess CO2

I'm thinking this could just have more uses in a reef tank as a PH boosting system, dump the Acid water, recirculate the basic and put the DI water in your ato

 

[KrisReef]

Yeah I don't know enough about ocean acidification but I'm fairly sure it's a but overhyped by pop science.

Even the article itself acknowledges that microalgae increases to consume the excess CO2

I'm thinking this could just have more uses in a reef tank as a PH boosting system, dump the Acid water, recirculate the basic and put the DI water in your ato

Certainly. Technology is all about applications. I was at the outfall of a Desal plant in Carlsbad, CA this morning that uses RO technology to make drinking water from the Pacific Ocean water. 50 million gallons a day. This technology is (imo) much better way to provide drinking water than building dams and drying up streams. Let the streams flow and pump the ocean through a membrane to extract water from saltwater. A little dilution and careful planning can allow for this alternative fresh water supply.

Again, I just read their article title and I find them wearisome with the hand wringing (what they have to do to get funding,...)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

They essentially do electrolysis, and send the products in different directions. In a reef application, one could imagine sending the alk stream into the tank and the acid stream to waste. Thus, it’s like dosing sodium hydroxide.