MOBILE SEAWEED FARM

Studio Spyropoulos Tutors

Theodore Spyropoulos | David Greene | Hanjun Kim | Apostolos Despotidis |Octavian Gheorghiu | OlgucanSulucay Team Zhaorui Zeng | Luisa Pires | Sukanya Balaji | Paul Yakubu

04 | FARMING & MICROSPLASTIC COLLECTION

LIFE 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 humannonhuman co-evolution 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

1.1 INTRODUCTION: STUDIO BRIEF

From an elemental perspective, Mobile Seaweed Farm uses seaweed as technology to clean and sustain life in the ocean. The thesis is rooted in the idea of engaging a live marine agent that responds positively to life-threatening issues in its environment. Naturally, seaweed farming aids in cooling down the oceans through photosynthesis and is a better enriched substitute to fish farming but further glaringly, it addresses the dangerous paradoxical influences of the use of plastics on marine ecology.

Research confirms that marine micro-plastics pollution is an alarming concern that requires immediate in-situ attention and steadfast retrieval. However, to achieve meaningful success, an agency-based responsive system needs to be proficient in terms of not only collecting but also replacing plastics as a potent flexible material. In this regard, seaweed as an alternative technology succeeds in either aspect as it is a natural attractor for hydrophobic plastic particles and the primary ingredient for biodegradable bio-plastics. Micro-plastics form colloids and attach to jellylike seaweed surface thus making it a natural filter while seaweed bio-plastic, on the other hand, becomes an alternative sustainable material for its own farming infrastructure.

Together with materiality, natural forces in the ocean like winds and currents on local and global scales is utilized to create sensible robotic swarms that respond to their environment through adopting beneficial biological trajectories and harvesting renewable energy. The project consequently follows the fundamental perception by Buckminster Fuller: “Don’tfightforces,usethem.”

1.1.1 Microplastics & Bioaccumulation

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 non-negotiable 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.

1.1.2 Phenomenon as Technology

“Technology helps in the disclosure of nature’s truth. Because nature has its own revelation, which makes the use of nature powerful, it must be known in order to be apprehended. It must be described qualitatively and measured quantitatively which together uncover an objective truth, having its own purpose, goal and distinct character. It is a revelation that is distinguishable from other phenomena and is the measure by which other phenomena are compared. Because nature is expected to reveal its secrets, much effort is devoted to this revelation, which also implies that if we are not actively involved in this process, we take no interest in nature or we force ourselves to take an interest.”

John Rivers

This project explores Seaweed as Technoology. It Identifies its natural ability to produce a mucus layer of polysacharides in which microplastics stick to when in close proximity. These polysaccharides which include carrageenan, agar, and alginate collect microparticles through surface adhension and nanoparticles through electrostatic binding. This Binds the nano plastic particles to the molecular structure of the seaweed. The production of these polysacharides vary through the array of seaweed species enabling some to species to be better at collecting microplastics in the ocean.

1.1.3 Architecture as Infrastructure

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 until 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.

In order to scale up and implemennt the phenomena , the project explores seaweed farming as infrastructure. Current seaweed farms are fixed infrastructture which are coasta; based. This project questiones the ability to scale them up into the outer ocean, make them mobile and implement them as a system to clean oceans. This consenquentially increases the production of seaweed which is a product that augments various industries.

1.1.4 Sustaining Life

The project explores the possibility of designing large population seaweed farms which serve as a scaffold for the growth if seaweed. These farming system is dynamic, mobile, adaptabe and responsive to ocean conditions favourable for seaweed farming. with the increase in farming seasons, the decrease in the amount of microplastics in the ocean. This creates a better habitat for aquatic life, a positive impact on ocean ecology and a phenomena to sustain life.

Microplastics: Statistics

1.4 Microplastics: Behaviour

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.

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.

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. Hydrophobic Absorption

The hydrophobic nature of these particles further attracts other ions [ which could be toxic metal ions from pollutants ] onto its surface to reduceits surface contact with water.

3.Wetability

The microplastic particles further brea down due to UVradiation 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.

1.6 Microplastics: Seaweed 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) cathode-anode 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.

(D) Microplastics attached to seaweed

GROWING PERIOD: WET SEAWEED

15% of Total surface area is likely to attract micro plastics within 6 month growing season

HARVEST PERIOD: DRY SEAWEED

Micro plastics can be separated by drying seaweed to remove its adhension

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.

We further engaged different seaweed and plastic organisations to understand the current knowledge on the phenomena. They highighted this problem as one faced by the seaweed industry currently. It 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.

This phenonmenon is currently viewed as a challengenge in the seaweed production industry. This thesis takes a different view and explores seaweed as a solution framework for the removal of microplastics from the ocean

“Microplasticshavebeenfoundtoclingtoseaweeds,whichserveasarouteformicroplastic transferintothemarinefoodwebandintohumanconsumption.”

1.7 Microplastics: Methods Analysis

SEAWEED RELATIONSHIPWITH MARINE ECOLOGY

ABSORBS CO2 HABITAT FOR AQUATIC LIFE

JOB CREATION ATTRACTS MICROPLASTICS

Seaweed farming can help regenerate coastal communities

Increases drag in the ocean and attract microplastics through retention and electrostatci binding

Food Industry

Household cosmetics

1.10 Seaweed Farming: Background Study

MAP OF GLOBAL CULTIVATION OF SEAWEED

Countries farming seaweed and their global percentage

1.11 Seaweed Farming: Methods

Seaweed Growing from lines into the ocean

1.12 Seaweed: Species Analysis

1.14 Thesis Statement

AimThe aim of the thesis is to design a circular system of a Mobile Seaweed Farm that includes on-site net production from seaweed bio-plastic, farming seaweed and filtering micro-plastics, and harvesting. Objectives-

Design and development of prototypes that can perform multiple functions— on-site production of circular farming nets, responsive collection of micro-plastics from polluted waters, creating harvesting structures

I nvestigating and utilizing natural elements like wind and currents in ocean environment for kinetics and floatation of prototypes using conceptions of buoyancy, sailing, and cheerios effect.

Simulating individual and group behaviours of agents in response to local and global conditions in response to presence and concentration of micro-plastics and nutrients, passive circular packing and active swarming, and generating harvesting structures

Mobile Seaweed Farm is a win-win approach in the essence that a circular system of seaweed aquaculture can quite enchantingly rejuvenate the ocean ecosystem ranging from very local to an extensive planetary scale—it can radically revolutionize both marine farming and plastic industries. The project hereby attempts to realize the imminent existential shift wherein technology shall enable and co-evolve with organic environments.

4.6 Agent Aggregation: Physical Experiment

4.7 Collective Agent Behaviour

Physical Experiment With 3d Printed Agents

Cheerio’s Behaviour

Learning from Lilipad, The Project adapts the circle packing Behaviour which allows for maximum surface interaction between circles and allows them to move from center to the periphery easily without turbulence.

3.1.2 Seaweed Bioplastics: Species & Properties Analysis

FUCUS

LAMINARIA

FUCUS&LAMINARIA

FLAKES PEBBLES

3.2.2 Wave Motion Test

3.2.3 Geometry test without anchor points

3.2.4 Geometry test with anchor points

3.2.9 Printing On Water With Pre-Cured Seaweed Bioplastic | Pattern Studies

3.2.10 Central Node And Spiral Pattern With Catenaries

Connected movement of nozzle and water medium results in a local eddy current generating a circular form.

3.2.12 Presence Of Current

Localised position of nozzle against moving water medium generates circular looping at nozzle point.

3.3 NET PROTOTYPING

3.3.1 Initial Prototyping : Catalogue of Net geome -

3.3.4 Pattern Analysis: Sunlight

3.3.5 Form Studies: Hot Glue Printing

3.3.6 Form Studies: Catenary Logic

3.3.7 Form Studies : Weight distribution

PATTERN A: ZIG-ZAG

Species: Laminaria Type: Line farming

Estimated seedling amount: 90%

PATTERN B: RANDOM LOGIC

Species: Laminaria and Fucus

Type: Scalable between line and grid farming

Estimated seedling amount: 80%

PATTERN C: DIAMOND GRID

Species: Laminaria

Type: Line farming

Estimated seedling amount: 90%

PATTERN D: STAR SHAPED

Species: Laminaria

Type: Line farming

Estimated seedling amount: 50%

PATTERN E: WEB

Species: Laminaria and Fucus

Type: Scalable between line and grid farming

Estimated seedling amount: 90%

PATTERN F: TRIANGULAR GRID

Species: Fucus Type: Grid farming

Estimated seedling amount: 90%

PATTERN G: RING IN A RING 01

Species: Fucus

Type: Grid farming

Estimated seedling amount: 90%

PATTERN H: RING IN A RING 02

Species: Laminaria

Type: Line farming

Estimated seedling amount: 50%

CLUSTERS

Different efficient patterns of farming nets were identified and clubbed together into clusters with varying diameters. The biggest ones were Ring in a Ring models followed by others.

3.3.9 Pattern Analyisis: Current Efficiency

3.3.9.1 General Principle

Nets with patterns mostly parallel to current flow reduce the drag in the ocean and the decrease the access of Nutrients to the seaweed

Nets with patterns mostly perpendicular to current flow increase the drag in the ocean and the increase the access of Nutrients to the seaweed

Nets with more porosity would be on the exterior of the cluster facing the direction of the current.

3.3.10 Pattern Analysis: Printing Efficency

3.3.10.1 Exporing

the idea of a flying printer

As circular profiles collide on water due to cherios effect, a floating circular boundary is introduced as sccafold for printing. Within this boundary, differents patterns are tested under various variables such as: printing efficiency, sunlinght, sagging, current and their suitability for various species.

Net priniting efficency is determined throught the continous nature of the printing pattern. Patterns which could be printed ompletely without printer pauses were deemed as the most efficient patterns while patterns with the more printer pauses were less efficient.

3.3.11 Floating Weaving Agent

As the process of Net production was adapted in the project by moving from printing to weaving, the production agent for these patterns were also adapted. The project explored the use of a 3 leg floating device which hosts the ropes and weaves the pattern around the circle.

Weaving Concept of the Continous Line

3.3.12 Weaving Concept of the Continous Line

3.3.13 Net Pattern Analysis: Cross Reference

04 | FARMING AND MICROPLASTIC COLLECTION

PHASE 02: SEAWEED AS TECHNOLOGY | FARMING AND FILTERING

high-speed area low-speed area

According to the study, more microplastics are in high-speed currents so our robots would continuously detect the speed of the surrounding currents and keep moving towards the high-speed currents

Ocean currents are primarily horizontal water movements. An ocean current flows dominant role in determining the clmate of many of Earth ’s regions. As a result, there

for great distances and together they create the global conveyor belt, which plays a are many creatures in the ocean that rely on currents to move and obtain nutrients.

visualization image shows the Gulf Stream (made by NASA)

In the ocean there are a large number of creatures that move by ocean currents: to move, but also rely on currents to feed. We learn their predation techniques like

Plankton, jellyfish, a par t of small fish ... Some of these jellyfish not only rely on currents jellyfish and apply them to our robots to absorb microplastics.

4.3 Harvesting Behaviour of the Balloon Logic

Phase 1: Growing seaweed

Phase 1: Harvesting

1.Nets finish growing seaweed

1.Increase the number of leaders and connect all the nets

1.Increase the number of leaders and connect all the nets

Harvesting: Balloon Behaviour

Harvesting: Balloon Behaviour

Harvesting: Balloon Behaviour

Sectional Inflation around the Net

The Initial design proposal of the balloons presented challanges in control, movement and scalability of the Net. The project explored sectional infllation around the ring from this point on enabling parametric control, movement and circle packing during aggregation.

5.3 Cluster Harvest Behaviour

HARVEST PHASE