We realized that people from different geographic regions, social and economic backgrounds, age groups and other demographics have a wide range of understanding of scientific concepts. Keeping this in mind, in July this year, we contacted Xiejian Village in Yangkou Town, Shunchang County, Nanping City, and with official permission we conducted an offline exchange and field research for a wide range of groups. . We hope to introduce the concept and use of carbon sinks to farmers through this communication, and to bring the importance of synthetic biology and the carbon cycle to the people’mind.
The theme of this science popularization is "Zero Carbon" strategic positioning to achieve sustainable development. We introduced the concept of carbon sink, its development history and application, and the powerful role of carbon sink in the carbon cycle, starting from the rational transformation of waste agricultural crops. Considering that their expertise is not so rich and deep, we tried to communicate in more common language, and special invitations were extended to local people with authority status and who know the dialect to translate in real time. For example, when we explained the use of carbon sinks, we compared them to a kind of currency. This gave the local villagers a deeper understanding of the concept and encouraged them to think about the current deteriorating environment. We also realized the importance of learning to communicate properly and apply different concepts and ideas to all our activities.
Carbon emissions caused by rural households include direct and indirect energy consumption, so carbon sinks are closely related to villagers' lives. This activity was interesting for everyone, probably because it was the first time that the farmers were exposed to this type of survey, they were very motivated and often asked some very puzzling but interesting questions. This is a global phenomenon. For example, they would ask, "Is the word "sink" in carbon sink related to foreign exchange?" (There is a similarity in the pronunciation of the two in Chinese.) The term carbon sink is a high-sounding term, so many people who are new to it often talk about carbon sink trading. Of course, we also provide professional and easy-to-understand answers.
All in all, this research brought fun to everyone and at the same time brought the importance of bioscience and carbon cycle into everyone's heart. It was also clear from the positive interaction that people were really interested in this aspect. Through this presentation, . For example, they would ask, "Is the word "sink" in carbon sink related to foreign exchange?" (There is a similarity in the pronunciation of the two in Chinese.) The term carbon sink is a high-sounding term, so many people who are new to it often talk about carbon sink trading. Of course, we also provide professional and easy-to-understand answers. All in all, this research brought fun to everyone and at the same time brought the importance of bioscience and carbon cycle into everyone's heart. It was also clear from the positive interaction that people were really interested in this aspect. Through this presentation, we were able to effectively reduce the cost of fertilizers purchased by the farmers, and at the same time, we could make the agricultural products green, organic and ecologically grown.
We are very grateful to have this opportunity to come to Xiejian Village in Yangkou Town for field research and exchange. Throughout the year, we encouraged dialogue in all our activities because all the views, feelings and opinions of the general population about synthetic biology and environmental issues have a social-cultural context. In order for us to understand this, we analyzed what we can learn to educate ourselves and improve our relationships and the way we communicate things to people, and if we want the general public to accept new ideas, we must do it in layman's terms. The field research also gave us a deeper understanding of the practical application implications of the experimental part of the project. At the same time we improved the farmers' understanding of the carbon cycle and sustainability.
If microalgae technology is so advanced and effective in treating wastewater, why is it not yet commonly used in society? The ultimate goal of many iGEM projects is to put them into practical production, especially for us who want to make clean water available to everyone. It is definitely not enough to move from a theoretical laboratory to a practical production, we think there are other factors involved such as economic benefits, production efficiency, social needs, etc. And there are many processes and difficulties that we do not understand. It was time to visit a specialized wastewater plant to see how they work and what are the advantages and disadvantages of the current waste water treatment technologies. After the team members' efforts, we contacted the person in charge of Jinshan Waste water Treatment Plant in Fuzhou City and got the opportunity to visit the site. The drainage system of the plant adopts a split-flow system and uses a modified process of SBR - ICEAS wastewater treatment process, which can reach the standard of Class A in Table 1 of the Pollutant Discharge Standards for Urban Wastewater Treatment Plants after deep treatment of "High Efficiency Sedimentation + Filter Cloth Filter". After many days of online communication between the team and Fuzhou ' Jinshan Wastewater Treatment Plant, the person in charge agreed that we should visit the company to exchange ideas.
After discussion, the team concluded that although we are doing a frontier wastewater treatment project, it is necessary to understand the current prevailing wastewater treatment process and principles in order to find obstacles that may be encountered in promoting our project and to avoid unnecessary troubles. The staff of Jinshan Wastewater Treatment Plant in Fuzhou City told us that the plant generally operates on the basis of biological treatment methods, removing elements such as nitrogen and phosphorus from the wastewater through biodegradation, and then through steps such as coarse grating, fine grating, sand settling tank, SBR biological reaction tank, high efficiency sedimentation tank, filter cloth filter tank, UV disinfection tank, etc., which can produce some economically valuable by-products while treating the wastewater. For example, the sludge is enriched and concentrated to produce sludge cake for power generation, helping to achieve resource conservation and recycling. This has greatly enlightened us that the current common wastewater treatment technology reduces costs by developing by-products, and we can also combine microalgae culture with wastewater treatment. Microalgae can absorb nutrients from the wastewater, thus saving the cost of cultivation and treating the wastewater at the same time. More than these, the leftover products of microalgae can be processed into food or fertilizer, produce ethanol, etc. With the development of synthetic biology, the screening and cultivation of oil-rich microalgae to obtain microalgae biodiesel has also shown great prospects for development. This is really wonderful! It is amazing that a small microalgae can be exploited for so many purposes.
Fuzhou Jinshan wastewater treatment plant in the production achieve the goal of no excessive emissions during the process , and its pollution reduction effect is remarkable, to make a huge contribution to energy saving and emission reduction in Fuzhou City.
Through this field research, we also saw the disadvantages of traditional wastewater treatment technology: complex process, high cost, and difficult to effectively use the nutrients in the wastewater. And there are reasons why microalgae treatment wastewater technology is favored by many scholars: strong environmental adaptability, easy to cultivate, better tolerance to different concentrations of wastewater, and the ability to effectively absorb organic matter in wastewater. We believe that the promotion of our microalgae treatment wastewater technology will definitely bring convenience and cleanliness to the society! With the permission of the staff at the site, we took relevant photos and videos to record some of the methods and technologies of wastewater plant treatment in order to compare and study with our project and promote our project to be more applicable.
Microalgae may cause serious pollution to the environment if they are discharged directly to external water bodies without recycling, so it is necessary to recycle microalgae after wastewater treatment. Microalgae are small and difficult to collect, and the main methods of collecting suspended algae are chemical flocculation, self-flocculation and bio-flocculation, gravity sedimentation, etc., but the recovery cost of these methods is still high. To reduce the cost of microalgae recovery, the use of microalgae membranes, immobilization technology and bacterial-algal symbiosis for wastewater treatment is a more effective method. One of the microfiltration membrane recovery may create membrane contamination problem, which is yet to be investigated.
Today this technology is still in the safety validation stage, because GMOs are not legally produced in most countries and regions of the world. This technology from the team can be used as a technology reserve to be useful in the future when there is an opportunity. In addition to the concern about the safety of the technology, we also need to consider other factors such as the need to increase public education and awareness of scientific literacy, etc.
All in all, we are inspired and encouraged by the communication with Fuzhou Jinshan Wastewater Treatment Plant, which has facilitated the progress of our project. We are also grateful to the staff of Fuzhou Jinshan Wastewater Treatment Plant for leading us to understand the process of the enterprise, which is of great significance for us to put the laboratory results into practical production applications.