I pursued this project as part of a class taken at RPI, called Sustainability by Design in the Spring of 2021. After doing research about the negative effect CO2 buildup has on students, I formulated a plan to empower schools to improve CO2 concentrations in classrooms by designing and testing an algae-based CO2 scrubber that anyone could make themselves.
Below I have linked my final report for this project, as well as my final presentation.
One interesting design element for this project was the 3D printed caps used to hold the reaction chambers. Because I wanted anyone to be able to build this cheaply, I designed the caps with a standard thread that could fit a wide array of commercially available drink bottles. Then I added inlet and outlet ports for the CO2 to enter via the air stone and the oxygen to escape. I also added dovetails to the caps, so they could be easily interconnected with other caps to expand the size of the bioreactor.
