Eutrophication at a Glance.
Conventional farming methods include the use of chemical fertilizer, which includes many compounds such as Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium. Despite common belief, it is not very effective, as more than 1,200 pounds are wasted for every ton of fertilizer applied in the USA. A large proportion of the wasted fertilizer is washed away and carried by streams to larger bodies of water, including seas, gulfs, rivers and lakes. When there, the fertilizer acts on algae, promoting its growth. This might sound good, but in reality, it has detrimental effects for essentially every aquatic organism.
The body of water is now overpopulated with algae. When it dies, it accumulates on the surface of the water, causing less sunlight to be able to reach the remaining algae. This results in a low-oxygen aquatic environment which causes fish to die. Since the sunlight can not reach the remaining plants, the can not perform photosynthesis and they also die. Other than the obvious detrimental effect to aquatic ecosystems, the smell of dead organisms is discernible from a large distance, devastating commercial practice.
Please see below for our solution!
By using the gene responsible for the production of the enzyme Nitrate Reductase, found in Pseudomonas Azetoformans, bacteria found in lillypads in Japan, we can make E. coli able to also produce the enzyme. Then, by harvesting the enzymes, we can immobilize them on a water filtration system, which can be installed in water drainage systems in farms. The water passing through the filter will have the excess fetrilizer in it. By passing through our filter, the nitrates will get catabolyzed to nitrites, which are less accessible to algae than nitrates. This will significantly mitigate the effect of eutrophication, ultimately offering a viable solution.
Our engineering team was involved in the development of a filter prototype which is scaled down. In reality, our filter would be bigger, to evenly distribute water pressure and minimize damage on the 3D printed plastic filter. One of our main goals include making the filter easily replaceable, since accumulated dirt, rocks and minerals can reduce the efficiency of our filter. Another goal was incorporating more than one layer, so the main layer containing the immobilized enzymes will only filter the fertilizer-rich water.