Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

This is super interesting! Sounds from the article like the main point is to remove CO2 from the air to improve air for humans. That&#x27;s already really exciting. In essence it&#x27;s a CO2 scrubber right? So how does this compare to devices built with the goal to remove CO2 with the goal to reduce climate change?<p>Edit: To answer my own question, this probably does little. They have a home use version that supposedly removes as much Co2 as twenty indoor plants. The paper linked below had three most efficient plant remove about 17% of Co2 in a cubic meter of air with optimal light conditions. So twenty of those wouldn&#x27;t have much impact in a reasonably sized dwelling. That&#x27;s assuming it&#x27;s equivalent to the most efficient plant and great lighting. I cannot imagine the much larger installation at the airport making much of a difference either given the massive amount of air.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;publication&#x2F;315968651_Effectiveness_of_Indoor_Plant_to_Reduce_CO_2_in_Indoor_Environment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;publication&#x2F;315968651_Effective...</a>

I have my doubts about this. In my experience, a house full of cannabis plants photosynthesizing full tilt under 15,000 watts of lights would still show elevated CO2 when two people went to it and tended it. Maybe the algae get around that, but I need to see some numbers.<p>&gt;A human breathes about 9.5 tonnes of air in a year, but oxygen only makes up about 23 per cent of that air, by mass, and we only extract a little over a third of the oxygen from each breath. That works out to a total of about 740kg of oxygen per year. Which is, very roughly, seven or eight trees&#x27; worth.

If you really want to have a less CO2-heavy stuffy indoor air, what you can use is an air-to-air heat exchanger. The idea is to get fresh air from outside, but transfer heat from the outgoing Co2-rich air to the incoming fresh air so you don&#x27;t waste the heating (reverse in case of air conditioning, I suppose).<p>If the problem is Co2 in the <i>outdoor</i> air, I&#x27;m afraid that&#x27;s a much bigger problem that you&#x27;re not gonna solve with a tank.

Based on the photo, it seems more of a showpiece than an actually practical way of filtering large quantities of air. Those bubble columns are at most a few liters of air per minute -- not much more than your usual aquarium pump -- when large air purifiers are in the hundreds or even thousands of cubic feet per minute. I just can&#x27;t imagine passing that much air through the columns without sending greenish water all over unsuspecting passengers. Unless this treated air has a synergistic effect on the surrounding air, like negative ions or ozone, this won&#x27;t make the air significantly cleaner.<p>It does look cool, though.

I bought a CO2 meter, and discovered my office had elevated CO2 levels (sometimes going over 1000). Cracking a window solved the problem.<p>Want to reduce CO2 levels outside? Plant trees. They&#x27;re solar-powered green machines, turning CO2 into building materials, paper, and fuel.

This seems like a potentially nice thing for a home office or bedroom. Does anyone have any experience with their home version?<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;algenair.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;algenair.com&#x2F;</a>

Any power consumption figures for a room of X people? I have to bombard my aquarium with powerful lights and co2 injection to get some pearling (oxygen bubbles). I would also imagine the lights to be blue+red peak grow lights to optimize photosynthesis and the glass tubes to be thinner to minimize attenuation of light in liquid.

Hah I was asking about just that 12 days ago<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33027184" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=33027184</a>

Does elevated co2 even cause a problem for humans?