Atmospheric carbon dioxide is reduced by diatoms, grown exclusively with Aquaritin.
Aquaritin Water Solution products are designed to promote exponential growth of native diatoms.
The rise in atmospheric CO2 levels is the greatest challenge facing humanity.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major greenhouse gas responsible for climate change and is currently affecting everything on our planet from extreme weather to rising sea levels. Even during the economic crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the unprecedented cessation of human activities has only led to a small dent in the global energy use and resulting CO2 emissions. A slowdown in CO2 emissions will only occur when we shift our dependence on fossil fuels and their outputs to renewables, such as solar, wind, biomass and other sustainable alternatives.
The world’s oceans are the most heavily utilized carbon storage sites, and already contain 39 trillion metric tons of carbon, where sinking particles transport carbon to the seafloor and it is buried in
the sediment. There is a limit to the CO2 sequestration capacity of our oceans, and it is projected that the pH of the oceans will further decrease by 0.3 to 0.4 units by the end of the century, which could dramatically alter marine food chains, further affecting all life on Earth. There is an urgent necessity to develop feasible strategies for CO2 sequestration to alleviate these concerns.
Diatoms are a group of microalgae found in all aquatic environments on Earth and are reportedly responsible for 20% of the planetary oxygen and 40% of marine primary production of oxygen. In nature, diatoms are a natural sink of atmospheric CO2, meaning that they provide a natural way to move atmospheric carbon to the seafloor. CO2 sequestration by photosynthetic organisms like diatoms can contribute significantly to the natural carbon sink and be a sustainable alternative when coupled with bioprocessing and biomanufacturing of value-added products.
Learn more about diatoms through the eyes of astronauts.
Aquaritin Water Solution products are designed to promote exponential growth of native diatoms.
Sungai Gong (River Gong) is a 250 MLD (millions of liters/day) river in Malaysia. It was deeply polluted with effluents from industry, agricultural farms, domestic wastewater and slaughterhouses. A pilot trial leveraging the breakthrough technology from Aquaritin was deployed for 3 months to assess the effectiveness against multiple point and non-point pollutants.
Besides the improvement in water quality, aquatic life and aquatic biodiversity seen in the river, Aquaritin fixed 7 tons of carbon, 1.7 tons of nitrogen and 0.5 tons of phosphorus per day during the trial. Compared to trees on land, the fixation of carbon at 7 tons per day is equivalent to the same carbon fixation provided by 120,000 trees.
Over a period of 30 days in the 16 km, 250 MLD river, 290 liters of Aquaritin and 300kgs of microbial cultures sequestered 210 tonnes of carbon.
Before
After
