Stormwater Treatment Algal Plug Flow Photobioreactor Towers Could Be Used to Fight Climate Change, Plastic Pollution, and Harmful Algal Blooms in Florida

In 2022, 35.8 billion tons of CO2 was released into the atmosphere. In 2019, the total phosphorus (TP) load to Lake Okeechobee was 442 metric tons (t). In 2021, only around 5% of over 50 million tons of plastic waste produced by US households was recycled. These three facts highlight an opportunity for entrepreneurship in the great state of Florida. So far, artificial wetlands called stormwater treatment areas (STAs) used to absorb nutrients from Floridian storm runoff are failing to achieve the maximum goal of 40 ppb TP. If STAs were built vertically as storm water treatment photobioreactor (STPBR) towers made of millions of modules of borosilicate glass tubes, filled with algae, fed with flue gas, and power from a plastic waste-to-energy plant with an optimal CO2 concentration, and a fed high nutrient substrate from Lake Okeechobee all three problems listed above could be solved cost and energy efficiently with higher loads and with a smaller land footprint. Using parameters from existing studies, STPBR towers were sized for different scenarios using the plug flow reaction.