Subject Area(s):
- Emerging Systems
- Ag Systems Modeling & Data Analytics
- Renewable Energy in Ag Systems
- Sustainable, Resilience & Circular Ag Systems
- Climate Smart Ag and Forestry Systems
Research Interests:
- Remediation of Water and Wastewater with Algae Cultivation (Process Design and Systems Modeling)
- Surface Engineering for Filamentous Algae Cultivation and Colonization
- Algae Biomass Production for Carbon Sequestration and Biofules Feedstock
- Resource Waste Recovery from Aquaculture Production
- Food Production from Aquaponics Systems
Keywords/Tags: Ecological engineering Ecosystem restoration Nutrient recovery Wastewater Non-point source pollution Phycoremediation Aquaculture engineering Ecosystem modeling 3-D printing Algae
We are interested in the engineering of systems for the cultivation of phototrophic algal biofilms for water pollution control and biomass production.
We are studying the parameters that describe the overall performance yields of the algal cultivation process in a variety of applications as a way to assess the overall economic and ecological sustainability of the process. Our research interests scale from the microcsopic, such as investigating the colonization dynamics of filamentous algae on novel substratum, to the macroscopic, such as assessing the value of benthic algal cultivation for pollution control and biomass production at the watershed scale.
Our research is focused on understanding the mechanisms of colonization and growth of phototrophic algal biofilms on various substrata and surfaces, and using that knowledge for the design and engineering of reactors for algal cultivation for water pollution control and biomass production. We are interested in a systems approach to assessing the sustainability of algal cultivation systems as ecologically-engineered systems for pollution control and biomass production for supply of biofuels or fertilizer. Some of the projects are described below.
Research
- Sustainability of algae cultivation for nutrient pollution recovery from natural waters.
- Design of gnotobiotic periphytic communities for functional yields
- Feedback control design in ecologically-engineered phototrophic ecosystems
