Team:FAFU-CHINA/Human Practices
Brainstorming
Location: Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University
Date：March 19, 2019
At the beginning of the project, the members of our team had an in-depth exchange with other iGEMers in the school. They led us to learn about iGEM, a large family of synthetic biologists. We learned about iGEM by learning on iGEM's wiki.
During this period, we have a deep impression on the following content by constantly reading the news: the IEA's report on current energy information, as the increasing of the energy demand, fossil fuels have been facing depletion, the development of a new renewable energy is imminent. So the topic of microalgae biodiesel production was put forward.
Questionnaire
Introduce:
Firstly, we studied the historical background of biodiesel, analyzed the significance of biodiesel for energy in the 21st century and investigated the current development situation. These results gave us some inspiration, and then we released a questionnaire to further understand people's views on biodiesel produced by synthetic biology techniques.
Results analysis
We can conclude that the popularity of biodiesel in the public is very low, people have a certain curiosity about it, but because of its high price, they are in a wait-and-see state. But it is in a wait-and-see mode because of its high price. The reason lies in the high cost of biodiesel, low accumulation in vivo and complex extraction methods. Therefore, we thought of increasing the accumulation of lipid in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by the method of synthetic biology. Moreover, since our algae is of the fragmented cell type, it is quite convenient to extract the lipid. This allowed us to expand our project idea.
The following content is from part of the questionnaire:
1、 Whether to advocate the development of biodiesel？
Will you use biodiesel when it becomes popular?
From this we can see that although people are not familiar with biodiesel, they are willing to accept this new thing.
Do you know the current price of biofuel？
Whether you would choose to use biofuels when the price of biofuels is slightly higher than that of oil？
It can be seen that the public does not have a deep understanding of biodiesel, and when the price of biodiesel is higher than that of traditional biofuels, people are more willing to use traditional biofuels. The high price is the main reason for the limited promotion of biodiesel.
manual
To konw the public's understanding of biodiesel and synthetic biology, we designed a questionnaire. The results indicate that the public is poorly informed about biodiesel and synthetic biology. Some people don't even want to use greener biodiesel. In response to these problems, we conceived some plans to carry out publicity. Eventually, we decided to make a manual to educate the public and publicize our project. The manual includes background and introduction of biodiesel, questionnaire survey and analysis.
Experts interviewed
Introduce:
In order to reduce the cost of biodiesel production, we have thought of reducing the cost of culture of materials. We have learned from the literature we read that our materials have good stain resistance, can grow normally in sewage, and have high nitrogen and phosphorus removal rates (N: 85%-90%; P: 100%), so we want Use sewage to cultivate. Since we live in Fujian, the province is rich in rivers and seas, so we thought of trying to combine our actual water conditions. From this we intend to investigate the waters.
Dr Ye Jie
Dr Ye Jie has made great achievements in the treatment and utilization of water environmental pollutants. We asked him for advice on sewage culture and water quality testing. He recommended that we use colorimetry for the detection of ammonia nitrogen, total nitrogen and total phosphorus. He also introduced the sewage treatment methods of Fujian agriculture and forestry university sewage treatment plant and common treatment methods in the industry. As for the water quality in Fujian, he gave us a detailed introduction, evaluated the scientific nature of our sampling plan and proposed an improvement plan.
We also carefully reviewed the investigation and analysis of various aspects of the Fujian Environmental Protection Bureau, from which we also learned that there were many factories in fujian with high nitrogen and phosphorus content in the drainage. We contacted the relevant factories and planned the sampling route along the river.
Collect water samples
In order to increase the maximum biomass of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in culture, we conducted experiments on Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in wastewater culture and biological wastewater culture. We screened the river according to the factors of different water quality in different locations and the characteristics of different production technologies in different factories. The water samples were then tested for different indicators and used to culture Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. After a period of observation, determine the most suitable growth environment for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.
This is all the sites that we sampled.
We were collecting water samples from the river.
We were collecting water samples from the sea.
At the same time, we had an in-depth communication with the manager of the tremella plant to learn about the wastewater treatment process and details of the tremella plant, and to discuss whether the cultivation of our experimental materials could be extended to the industrial process.
This water sampling trip is a great boost to our project.
Experts interviewed 1
Introduce:
After the last practice, we carefully considered the possibility and specific technology of industrial production of biodiesel, so we decided to further understand the content of algae industrial farming and industrial production of biodiesel.
Professor Xie Youping
Professor Xie Youping has been engaged in the research of microalgae biotechnology, high-value utilization of biological resources, fermentation engineering, biological separation engineering and other fields for many years, and has a certain understanding of microalgae and biodiesel. The professor introduced the difficulties in the industrialization of microalgae oil production, and improved the methods of microalgae culture and collection, electric conversion, oil extraction and microalgae flocculation. Through the professor's suggestion, we improved the experiment and had a deeper understanding of microalgae and biodiesel industrialization.
iGEM south China regional exchange meeting
During this time, we attended the iGEM south China regional exchange meeting where we had professional communication with more iGEMers, and we also had some inspiration for our project, and we wanted to improve the installation of the second part of the project.
Community of China iGEMer Community
While interviewing professor hu, we attended the largest iGEMers conference in China in Shenzhen.
CCiC is a national summit independently initiated by China's iGEM teams, which aims to provide a resource sharing platform for participating iGEM teams to promote mutual learning and exchange.
During which we saw the creativity of iGEM teams from various universities in China, actively communicated with other teams, supplemented and improved each other, and felt and enjoyed the greatest pleasure from synthetic biology.Communicating with many igem teams was the most rewarding part of our trip.
Visit an algae farm
In order to further understand the structure of microalgae industrialization, we contacted a nearby algae farm- Furiqing Algal Industry Company for a visit. We found that the factory consists of an open runway pool, microalgae drying processing room and accessories workshop and warehouse. Algae were cultured in the racetrack pool, and water pumps were used for extraction and filtration. The collected algae were muddy. Processing is sending the algal mud collected to the dryer (electricity or coal), and finally dried processing into algal powder. In terms of cost, the first is the equipment, mainly microalgae dryer, the daily output of half a ton of machines, about 100,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan; Secondly, farming, electricity costs of 15 thousand yuan per month, workers' wages and the interference of weather factors. The breeding period is generally from April to November, and the harvest cycle is generally seven days, which can harvest 1-2 tons.
