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Production And Harvest Of Microalgae In Wastewater Raceways With Resource Recycling, Alexander Colin Roberts

Master's Theses

Microalgae can be grown on municipal wastewater media to both treat the wastewater and produce feedstock for algae biofuel production. However the reliability of treatment must be demonstrated, as well as high areal algae productivity on recycled wastewater media and efficient sedimentation harvesting. This processes was studied at pilot scale in the present research.

A pilot facility was operated with nine CO₂-supplemented raceway ponds, each with a 33-m² surface area and a 0.3-m depth, continuously from March 6, 2013 through September 24, 2014. The ponds were operated as three sets of triplicates with two sets continuously fed …

Inferring Plastid Metabolic Pathways Within The Nonphotosynthetic Free-Living Green Algal Genus Polytomella, Sara Asmail

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The advent of photosynthesis facilitated the evolution of aerobic life on Earth. However, species such as Prototheca wickerhamii and Plasmodium falciparum, among many others, have lost photosynthesis and opted for a free-living/parasitic lifestyle. Despite this loss, these species have retained the plastid for its metabolic pathways, without which they would die. Polytomella is a nonphotosynthetic free-living alga, closely related to the photosynthetic model organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and has been shown to lack a plastid genome. I set out to determine Polytomella plastid metabolic pathways using bioinformatics to look for mRNA and DNA homologous sequences matching pathway enzymes in model organisms. …

Size-Fractionated Relationships Between Phytoplankton Production And Biomass, Luke Auman Bassett

Senior Theses

Phytoplankton are the autotrophic foundation of almost all marine ecosystems.

The flow of energy through an ecosystem is largely dependent how productivity moves through organisms of various sizes. For this reason, numerous studies have set out to quantify the respective contributions of these size-fractions to biomass and rates of primary production. This is done through field measurements of production or through mathematic models that infer production contributions from the easier field measured contributions to biomass. However, the accuracy of this method has been called into question. Can contributions to biomass really be used to accurately interpret contributions to production?

The …

Studying The Effects Of Theraflu On The Growth Of Selenastrum Capricornutum, Hannah Gray Boren

Honors Theses

Algae contribute to self-purification of streams and rivers and are necessary as food for fish and as components of aquatic food webs (1). However, too much or too little algae may create or be indicative of a problem. If nutrients are present in large amounts, algae growth may become excessive, resulting in algal “blooms.” These algal blooms can change the chemistry of the water, making it toxic to other aquatic occupants, including fish, birds, animals, and other plants (1). On the other hand, if nutrients in the water are limiting or are exhausted, algae growth is inhibited, which results in …