Mobile Seaweed Farm

Mobile Seaweed Farm Sustaining Life in the Ocean Luisa Pires, Sukanya Balaji, Paul Yakubu, Zhaorui Zeng

00 Life in the Ocean Microplastics 01 Problems to address Microplastics: Statistics Microplastics: Behaviour Microplastics: Experiments Microplastics: Seaweed Experiments Case Study: Cloud of Sea Microplastics: Methods Analysis

02 Seaweed Aquaculture How does Seaweed affect the Ocean?

Seaweed Farming: Background Study Seaweed Farming: Methods Seaweed Bioplastics Seaweed: Species Analysis

Proposal 03 Mobile Seaweed Farm

04 Agent Behaviour Agent Movement Simulation Rotating Filters Simulation Agents Organisation Agent Behaviour Behaviour of Net making

05 Prototyping 3D Printing Component Tests - 2D 3D Printing Aggregations 3D Printing net Tests -3D

Experiments 06 Plastic Extrusion on Water Experiments Bioplastic Experiment

00 Life in the Ocean Life, as we know it, began in the Ocean.

With millions of species of plant and animal life, the oceans covering about 71 percent of the Earth hold up to 80 percent of our planet’s life forms within. As Earth’s largest aquatic ecosystem with varying layers of fascinating habitats like the coral reefs, kelp forests, estuaries, mangroves, coastal areas, and the deep sea zones, marine ecology shares a magical eminence in terms of sustaining life. However, our oceans housing many of the most beautiful complex forms of organic life need to be immediately saved from the many detrimental impacts of marine pollution and degradation. The Industrial Revolution and the era of the wasteful Anthropocene are vividly being blamed for the alarming global-scale pollution and destruction of our delicate ecologies. Humans have indeed polluted land, air, and water; we have consumed and we have wasted ungodly amounts of resources to satisfy our needs and greeds. But the true problem is not technology, rather it is the impact of misusing it. There is a pressing need to address the problems created by our current lifestyles in an attempt to sustain life on our planet. And, to save oceanic life, we need to understand and appreciate the existing ecology of the oceans and identify relational issues that could be solved through careful interventions.

Of the many issues faced by oceanic life, the most primary ones were identified to be global warming causing lethal temperature rise in the waters, microplastics and bioaccumulation resulting from pollution, and extensive fish farming methods that cause severe ecological imbalance through crowding and concentrated waste accumulation. These concerns are intriguingly complex but also dangerously affective on a planetary scale. Our ecosystems now require more than vernacular methods of co-living—we need to enable a human-nonhuman coevolution within our terrestrial ecologies. We envision the era of the Novacene wherein technology would be utilized in this essence to generate correlated systems of electronic agents that support and sustain life in the ocean.

Our research is focused on marine life in the coastal regions where biodiversity and direct human interaction is maximal.

The experiments and inferences are based on exploring the behaviours of two potential plastic materials, microplastics and bioplastics, and offering a comprehensive system of swarm agents that aid in sustaining life in the oceans.

“Technology is the answer, but what was the question?” | Sustaining Life in the Ocean

MICROPLASTICS AND BIOACCUMULATION

GLOBAL WARMING AND TEMPERATURE RISE

EXTENSIVE FARMING AND ECOLOGICAL IMBALANCE

50-150g/km2

20-50g/km2

50g/km2 > 150g/km2

ConcentrationRangeofMicroplasticsperOceanGyre

> 150g/km2

50g/km2 > 150g/km2 0-20g/km2

Concentration Range of Microplastics per Ocean Gyres

5g/km2 > 150g/km2

50g/km2 > 150g/km2

20g/km2 > 150g/km2

Microplastics 01 Microplastics are fragments of any type of plastic less than 5 mm (0.20 in) in length, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Chemicals Agency.

Marine plastic pollution is one of the most distressing problems of the Anthropocene era. The present nonnegotiable production of plastic products and the ever increasing contamination of marine waters with macroplastics have caused deep impacts to the ocean ecosystems. A particularly riveting factor of plastic pollution is the resultant generation of microplastics. Bigger pieces of plastics are broken down by UV rays and other chemical agents into smaller particles that can enter the foodchain resulting in bioaccumulation and biomagnification that intrudes the bodies of every related organism—even the human digestive tracts through consuming seafood.

The figure to the left shows the concentration of microplastics in the five major ocean gyres where the macroplastics have accumulated as garbage patches following the ocean currents. These regions are being cleaned by organizations like Parley and The Ocean Clean Up that pick up the macroplastics. But the already spreading tiny particles of broken plastic, microplastics, can only be extracted through careful intervention.

PLASTICINPUT TO THE OCEAN 8milliontons/year

MismanagedCoastalPlasticWaste 31.6 million tons/year

Coastal Plastic Waste 99.5 million tons/year

Global Primary Waste Generation 275 million tons/year

Global Primary Plastic Production 270 million tons/year

Global Warming | Temperature Rise Global warming causes a significant increase in water temperature as the ocean absorbs most of the excess heat from greenhouse gas emissions. Rising temperatures affect marine ecology as each species require specific ranges of temperature for survival and heated waters can cause serious damage like coral bleaching, loss of breeding grounds and even extinction of species.

Increase in the amount of oxygen and a parallel decrease in carbon dioxide by photosynthesis is one way to balance the heat gain. Likewise, moving the cooler deeper waters upwards by initiating a current in the oceanic layers is another suggested method.

ExtensiveFarming|EcologicalImbalance Aquafarming has emerged to answer the growing demands of seafood globally. It has accounted for the most growth in production from the fish sector since 1990. As a scetor it has also employed 20.5million people globally. one the commercial forms of fish aquaculture involve the breeding, raising and harvesting fish and aquatic plants in controlled cages within the ocean. It involves open net pens sunk into the ocean and held with anchors to the sea bed, young fishes are places in the open net and farmed till they are ready for harvest.

As this system takes advantage of ocean currents in the continuous delivery of oxygen and removal of fish waste, the ocean bears the cost as a constant recipient of concentrated waste. This waste can change the chemical make-up and biodiversity in ocean areas. An example is pesticides from the cages carried by water to affect other aquatic animals. There is also the potential of the transfer of diseases from the farmed fish to the wild fish which move free in the ocean. Aqua farming can also lead to ecological imbalance in the ocean as farm fish escape, breed with wild fish and attack the wild fish due to competition for food.

Microplastics: Behaviour

FlakesPLASTIC Plastic FLAKES > 5 mm >5mm

Pebble PLASTIC Plastic PEBBLE 2- 5 mm 2-5mm

1. COLLOID AGGREGATION Microplastics have a general tendency to form colloids in water medium. As plastics are generally hydrophobic, i.e. they tend to resist contact with water molecules, the smaller microplastics tend to combine together as colloids when in a water medium.

2. HYDROPHOB

The hydrophobic na further attracts othe toxic metal ions fro surface to reduce it

w

Microplastics consist of different types of plastics (depending on chemical combinations) but these are generally classified further on the basis of size for ease of collection. The bigger ones break down into smaller particles due to UV radtiation and other chemical factors.

Flakes: Bigger particles of size 5mm or more Pebbles: Smaller particles of size 2-5mm Powder: Fine particles that are 1mm or less in size

Powder Plastic POWDER PLASTIC < 1mm <1mm

BIC ADSORPTION

ature of these particles er ions [which could be om pollutants] onto its ts surface contact with

water.

Currently, plankton nets are used to collect the flakes and pebble plastics which can be easily collected in the nets but this would also trap live planktons in the water. An efficient system of filters are therefore necessary to collect these implicitly. Furthermore, the powder plastics that are too fine and widely spread needs to be collected using a mechanism that responds effectively to its behavioural characters.

Research into these concluded that they behave as colloids in water meidum due to their hydrophobicity which also tends toxic metals from pollutants to be attracted to their surfaces.

These are deeply dangerous to the organisms that consume them and also poses the greater threat of biomagnification.

They tend to break down further into hydrophilic nanoparticles that settles to the sea bed which makes it frighteningly impossible to recover. Hence, we propose that an explicity system of filters that can get flakes and pebbles alongwith an effective technique for powder plastics is necessary.

3. WETTABILITY The microplastic particles further break down due to UV radiation and other factors into nano microplastics. These particles are hydrophilic and therefore move as separate particles and finally sink to the ocean bed from where it is extremely hard to collect them.

Microplastics: Magnet Experiments The colloidal hydrophobic microplastic particles respond to electromagnetic fields. The particles become charged and can be collected using a magnet. We carried out different experiments to explore this property using (a) cathodeanode electromagnetic field and magnet and (b) magnetite and magnet for dry microplastics, followed by (c) magnetite, oil, and a magnet for microplastics in water medium.

(b) Magnetite + Magnet | Dry Microplastics - Mixing magnetite to microplastics

(b) Magnetite + Magnet | Dry M collect the

(c) Magnetite + Magnet + Oil | Microplastics in water medium Mixture in water

(c) Magnetite + Magnet + Oil | M Introducing mag

(a) Cathode-Anode Electromagnetic field + Magnet

Microplastics - Using magnet to e mixture

(b) Magnetite + Magnet | Dry Microplastics - Collected mixture on magnet

Microplastics in water medium gnet in medium

(c) Magnetite + Magnet + Oil | Microplastics in water mediumCollected mixture on magnet

Microplastics: Seaweed Experiments On learning more about ocean ecology, it was noticed that seaweeds attract microplastics onto their surfaces. Geometric trapping, electrostatic binding, and adhesion to seaweed mucus are the reasons for its attraction and retention.

Now a problem faced by the seaweed industry currently, this could potentially offer an organic solution to collect powder microplastics. We experimented with a species of brown seaweed [Fucus serratus] and microplastics in water and the experiment was successful.

Adding microplastics to seaweed in water

Microplastics settling on sea [time: 04

aweed surface after stirring 4:00 pm]

Microplastics attached to seaweed after taking out of water

Case Study : Cloud of Sea

Case Study : Cloud of Sea

Case Study : Cloud of Sea

Front with female thread and hole for attachment to the rope.

Three-arm offset filter with holes retracting inwards.

Net and rotating ring of the filter structure.

Final part with male thread and hole for attachment to the rope.

This product which has the intent to collect the microplastics present in the sea is mainly composed of 4 parts, each with a specific joint towards the others: two external parts that make up the channel for the water to pass through and holds for the rapes, a removable central ring and the rotating fiter contained inside.

The shape of the product components. have been designed to address the problems related to friction with water, in order to limit the pulling force of this object .The fundamental part of the system has been designed with a helical shape, capable of rotating during the passage of fluids, and at the same time having holes in all faces, it continues to fiter the microplastics.

The structure of the filter has a shape designed to reduce the friction coefficient and to capture the microplastic inside it, however without releasing them into the water.

Microplastics: Methods Analysis

02 Seaweed Aquaculture In recent years, seaweed aquaculture has become a method to reestablish the ocean ecosystem. Its vast effect on marine life are now being harnessed as it is farmed alongside fishes in the ocean. These effects start with seaweed acting as food and shelter for marine life, reducing ocean temperatures through photosynthesis, being a buffer against ocean acidification, Dampen wave action, Reduce coastal action and helps absorb excess nutrients from waste water. It has shown to be an aquatic plant with vast potential to solve problems in the marine ecosystem.

Seaweed aquaculture involve a vast number of species categorised as green, brown and red with each having unique properties. these properties further translate into its vast industrial uses. these include food, medicine, fertilizers, fuel, cosmetics and so on. It creates a two fold backing the need to farm seaweed- to effect marine life and harvest it for suitable products. Today, harvesting wild seaweed contributes to the majority of seaweed production in Europe, with the largest producers being in France, Norway, Ireland, Iceland and Russia. In Ireland, 10,000 wet tonnes of seaweed are gathered each year from a single beach in Cork. Seaweed aquaculture presents a huge window to solve ocean problems and will also be the window this project uses to sustain life in the ocean.

How does Seaweed affect the Ocean?

ABSORB CO2 Utilizes dissolved nutrients and carbon dioxide and grows at a faster rate than trees

HABITAT FOR AQUATIC LIFE A safe habitat for hatchlings, it can support commercial fishing rather than competing

JOB CREATION Seaweed farming can help regenerate coastal communities

ATTRACTS MICROPLASTICS Increases drag in the ocean and attract microplastics through retention and electrostatic binding

Countries farming seaweed and their global percentage

SEAWEEDS | MAP OF GLOBAL CULTIVATION

FACTORS AFFECTING FARMING ENVIRONMENT

Rope/Line Farming

Drying Seaweed on Land

Seaweed Farming nets

Floating Seaweed Dryer

SEAWEED FARMING | METHODS OF FARMING

Seaweed Bioplastics Seaweed Bioplastics is a rising industry of organic plastics.

It is quite interesting that a simple algae organism such as seaweed has such a possibility in its structure. Seaweed structure is very simple unlike the xylem-phloem complexity in plant bodies. These simpler species that live in a water medium do not need specialized cells for nutrient transport but absorb the nutrients directly from the surroundings. The ones that grow attached to rocks have holfast, a kind of root-like structure, that keeps it attached to the rocky surfaces and protects it against tides.

Also, in times of low tides, they need to protect themselves against dehydration which is done by secreting a gellike mucus that covers the whole body. This secretion as we saw before helps collect microplastics. In terms of creating seaweed bioplastics, it is the presence of high quantities of polysachharides which are complex sugar molecules that gives it the strength and smoothness.

When powdered seaweed is mixed with a plasticizer like glycerol, it becomes more plastic and can be used as an alternative to synthetic plastics.

However, unlike synthetic plastics, seaweed bioplastics are biodegradable as all the components it uses are organic and easily degradable. More the amount of starch and glycerol, higher will be the degradation rate while the polysaccharides add rigidity and durational strength to the structure.

Laminaria

Gracilaria

Different species of seaweed has different polysaccharides.

Usually brown and red seaweeds are used to make bioplastics due to their high content of strong polysaccharides. Green seaweeds that contain agar can also be used to make soft plastics. Some of the most common family of red and brown seaweeds used for making bioplastics and their polysaccharide types are as given below.

Fucus [Fucoidan] Laminaria [Alginate] Gracilaria [Agar] Gelidium [Agar] Eucheuma [Carrageenan] Kapphaphycus [Carrageenan]

Gelidium

STRENGTH

SMOOTHNESS

CARRAGEENAN STARCH CELLULOSE

CARRAGEENAN STARCH

DEGRADATION

FLEXIBILITY

STARCH PLASTICIZER [GLYCEROL]

PLASTICIZER [GLYCEROL]

Seaweed: Species Analysis

Porphyra

Fucus

Undaria

Laminaria

Eu

South Asia West Europe

So W

Used Commercially

Used for Bioplastic

Collects Plastics

Native Areas

South Asia

Type of Farming

Nets

West Europe

Nets

South Asia

Line

Line

ucheuma

outh Asia West Europe

Nets

Kapphaphycus

South Asia South America

Nets

Gracilaria

Saccharina

South Asia South America

West Europe

Nets

Line

Alaria

Palmaria Palmata

West Europe

West Europe

Line

Line

Proposal 03

Mobile Seaweed Farm Based on the research findings, the thesis proposes a Mobile Seaweed Farming system that follows a circular lifecycle based on the cultivation and harvesting of seaweeds. The notion is to collect microplastics from the ocean and replace the current plastic nets with biodegradable seaweed bioplastic nets. The cycle duration shall ideally be one year based on the harvesting period of the species being cultivated. The system shall be led by swarm agents that aid in collecting microplastics and 3D printing bioplastic farming nets in the ocean.

There are three major active phases in the process:: 01 | Seedling [Planting seaweed saplings onto the nets] 02 | Harvesting [Annual harvesting of mature seaweed] 03 | Printing nets [3D printing and weaving/knitting of farming nets in the ocean] The passive timeline shall be occupied by microplastics collection during 1-2, biodegradation of nets from previous cycle during 2-3 followed by conversion of collected the microplastics as tetrapods made from plastiglomerates, which are stones with melted plastics in it, to protect shoreline during 3 to 1.

01 | SEEDLING

Collecting Microplastics

Plastiglomerates Tetrapods

MOBILE SEAWEED FARM 02

I

I T N

03

R |P

NG

N

S ET Biodegradation of Nets

|H

AR

VE

ST

IN

G

Agent Movement Simulation

The shape of the net system will be designed with rules surfaces adapted to the fin shape to aid the movement of the farming system. This idea will be applied to create different iterations of The agent geometry.

The agent vertical movement will be aided through controlled inflation. This inflation enables the farming system to rise, fall and remain at a certain level in the ocean.

Rotating Filters Simulation

Rotating filters that collect microplastic a

01.Brown seaweed with adhesive polysaccharide​

02.Bioplastic Nets with p

and harvest wave energy to power agent​

polysaccharide Properties

03.Filters to collect microplastics

Agents Organisition

Agents Oganisition:

To save energy, 7 agents will work as a small team, and the agent in the middle will work as the c Negtive agents.

Active Agent

Negtive Agent

Rope

core (active Agent), which will carry senser and energy. The surrounding six agents will act as

Behavior of Collecting Microplastics : Fish Flocking

Separation

Alignm

steer to avoid crowding local

steer towards

flockmates

heading of loc

Boids:

Boids is an artificial life program, developed by Craig Reynolds in 1986, which simulates the flock

ACM SIGGRAPH conference. The name “boid” corresponds to a shortened version of “bird-oid ob tion for “bird.”

To collect more microplastics, we want our agents to be as efficient and energy efficient as possib

ment

Cohesion

s the average

steer towards the average

cal flockmates

heading of local flockmates

king behaviour of birds. His paper on this topic was published in 1987 in the proceedings of the

bject”, which refers to a bird-like object. “Boid” is also a New York Metropolitan dialect pronuncia-

ble in the ocean.So we use the BOID as a reference to simulate the activities of agents..

Behavior of Collecting Microplastics

01.Boundary the agents have a moving boundary

02.Tida

our agents tend to use tida out of enery,they can go

pow

al Power

03.Separation

al power, so when they are

Each agent has a arrange of collectingmicroplastics.

back to the coast by tidal

So we want our agents move separately when they

wer

are close to collect more microplastics

Behavior of Collecting Microplastics

Back to the coast

No

I

Yes

B

If the tide is too low to support the moving

Working Mode:

Waves are both the energy and the obstacle to our agents. So our agents have different working

agents work separately. Agents return to shore when energy is low; When waves are too strong, a

Work as a cluster

Work separately

No

Work Separately

If tide is Normal or High Yes

Work as a Cluster

Back to the coast

g modes to deal with the wave.When the waves are normal and agents have enough power,

agents work as a cluster to reduce wave resistance.

Behavior of Net Making : knot

Knot: we learn from the net of farmers, actually, a net is a combination of a lot our web in 3d shape, we use each knot as an anchor point

fo knot. So making a knot is the basical behavior of our agent. To make

Behavior of Net Making : Anchor Point

01

04

02

05

03

06

01

04

02

05

03

Prototypying 05

3D Printing Component Tests - 2D

3D Printing Aggregations

This Funicular shape is attained by following a crochetting logic of adding a “loop” component every 3 loops. By following this step guide we can create hyperbolic geometries that can be a possibility for for the exoskeleton of our agents or for net formations.

3D Printing Component

3D Printing Aggregations

3D Printing net Tests -3D

We utilised 3D printing pens to print around a series of anchor points. This simulates how our agents would operate by 3D Printing around preestablished anchor points. this way we stabelize the nets.

Experiments 06

Plastic Extrusion on Water Experiments

Kuka Robot

Plastic Extruder

Path

Container with Water

Wave Motion in water recreated by beating container in intervals

Plastic Extrusion on Water Experiments - Wave Motion

Path follows wave motion

Thinner extrusion floats (can withstand surface tension)

As the Extrusion gets thicker it sinks and follows wave motion

Plastic Extrusion on Water Experiments - Still Water with anchor points

Introduction of Anchor points

Thinner Scafolding that can widstand surface tension

Thicker Printing for “ropes” to widstand the weigght of the Seaweed This also sinks gradually but at a much slower rate than without the anchor points.

Plastic Extrusion Experiments - Anchor Points Catenary

Plastic Extrusion Experiments - loops

Bioplastic Experiment INGREDIENTS

3 spoons of Fucus serratus [powdered] in 250mL Water 250gm of Arrowroot Starch in 500mL Water 150mL Glycerin

Bioplastic lump atttracting microplastics