Chelsey Vu — Microalgae: the foundation of tomorrow — Transcript

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1. 0:04Nowadays, if you go onto online shopping  and type in the search “microalgae”,
2. 0:08you will be able to find hundreds of microalgal  based products that are advertised to be health
3. 0:13and skin supplements. But did you know what  microalgae is and that microalgae can provide
4. 0:19much more than just vitamin and collagen?   Microalgae is photosynthetic microorganism,
5. 0:25invisible to naked eyes and are different  from the large algae such as seaweed that
6. 0:30we are familiar with. Microalgae is a  renewable and climate-friendly resource
7. 0:35that can transform many industries and  evolve into a carbon-neutral bioeconomy.
8. 0:41The colour of our clothes and food can  be obtained from microalgal pigments.
9. 0:45You can go into the supermarket and grab yourself  a pack of algal beers. Microalgae can also be
10. 0:51used as feed for aquaculture, and a platform  for carbon munching and wastewater treatment.
11. 0:56And the next thing you know is that you’re driving  a motorbike or car fuelled by microalgae.
12. 1:01In reality, microalgal cultivation is easy  but harvesting the microalgal cells from
13. 1:07the diluted suspension to produce such valuable  pigments and chemicals is still a difficult and
14. 1:13expensive task. To tackle this bottleneck, my  PhD focuses on developing a low-cost and highly
15. 1:20efficient microalgal harvesting technology using  polymer flocculation. Polymers are positively
16. 1:28charged and act like magnets to attract  the negatively charged microalgae cells.
17. 1:35Opposites attract! When polymer is added to  the algal solution, the cell surface charge is
18. 1:43neutralised, making it sticky. The polymer  then acts like a giant magnetic spider web
19. 1:50to agglomerate thousands tiny algal cells together  for collection. Microalgae are tiny organisms and
20. 1:58their cellular properties evolve as they  grow. My research has shown that harvesting
21. 2:04microalgae using polymer is the most effective  at the beginning of the mature growth phase.
22. 2:12This finding will help to optimise the cost  and the quantity of microalgae harvested.
23. 2:17My research shows that flocculation for microalgal  harvesting is competitive, requires 80% less
24. 2:24energy and no complex equipment to achieve  higher efficiency compared to traditionally
25. 2:31used techniques such as centrifugation and  membrane filtration. These advantages make polymer
26. 2:38flocculation easier and more accessible to be  implemented by microalgae farmers and producers,
27. 2:45thus open ways to a new algal industry and create  job opportunities for the industry. I believe
28. 2:52microalgae will be the foundation of our modern  economy and we are getting closer to sustainable
29. 2:57future where one day, an algae-fuelled airplane  can take us to our next holiday destination.