Algae panels would produce nearly half the amount of energy generated by a solar panel — at a lower cost and also at night.
Algae have potential as a renewable electricity source, Concordia University researchers have learned.
After years of work, researchers with the university’s Optical-Bio Microsystems Lab say they have found a way to harvest electrons from algae to create electricity.
Muthukumaran Packirisamy, a professor in Concordia’s Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering department and a researcher who heads the lab, explained it’s photosynthesis that makes this new negative carbon-emission technology possible.
During photosynthesis, plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to create oxygen.
Packirisamy, who is not an expert in this field, involved biologists in this project and they explained during the process of photosynthesis there is a conversion between photons and electrons. In other words, when a photon, which is an elementary particle, is taken up by the algae, an equivalent electron is released.
Algae are known for their efficient photosynthesis process, Packirisamy said.
“My engineering mind asked itself: If electrons are generated in this process of photosynthesis, why couldn’t we extract them and produce electricity that way?”
The challenge: to capture the electrons.
The researcher, who works generally with microfluids and microsystems, had the idea of having the algae “swim” in “micro-ponds,” which he also called photosynthetic electrical microcells.
Within these spaces, the research team placed microelectrodes it produced that are capable of capturing these electrons and bringing them into a circuit, thereby producing electricity. Not only is it clean energy, but it also contributes to eliminating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, Packirisamy said.
The demonstration was done with photosynthetic electrical microcell measuring about one inch by one inch, he said. He is now working on producing a thousand microcells and then putting them together to form an “algae panel” in the manner of a solar panel.
According to his calculations, similar-sized algae panels would produce nearly half the amount of energy generated by a solar panel — and at a lower cost.
“But our advantage is that we can stack them one on top of another, whereas solar panels cannot be stacked because they must be exposed directly to the sun.”
And unlike solar panels, algae panels can also produce electricity at night. “Algae follow two types of cycles,” Packirisamy explained. In addition to photosynthesis during the day, there is a “breathing cycle of respiration at night when there is no so sun. Electrons are produced during both processes,” he said.
“That means we can siphon electrons day and night.”
Manufacturing solar panels uses hot chemical products, whereas making algae panels does not, Packirisamy said.
“We use simple microfluids and organic polymers.”
Packirisamy is now considering the commercialization of the energy. He has lots of ideas: installing panels on buildings, creating panels of algae that would also be building windows, or to manufacture panels that would be creative works.
It is my dream (to commercialize this energy),” he said. “I really want to make it into a good product.
“It’s all a question of financing and of the number of hours of work dedicated to it. … If there is enough financing and there are enough people with the right mentality, I think that it could be done in the next three to five years.”