The social and environmental issues

We have a full investigation of the background of the project: the cause of the Enteromorpha outbreak, the current situation of Enteromorpha outbreak, the application and utilization, the monitoring and forcasting, as well as local people's understanding of Enteromorpha's outbreak. To learn more about its advanced study, we also went to the First Institute of Oceanography, IOCAS, Qingdao Seawin Biotech Group and other places like that to dig deeper of Enteromorpha. There in IOCAS, we acquired knowledge of the influencing factor and reason for Enteromorpha outbreak. In the Qingdao Winsea Group, we volunteered in the processing workshop of the Enteromorpha and learn about the physical pretreatment necessary for our Enteromorpha residue utilization.

Current Situation

Through the investigation, we know that the cause of Enteromorpha outbreak in Qingdao is mainly the excessive discharge of aquaculture waste water from coastal farms. At present, the amount of salvaged Enteromorpha annually is over 70000 tons, which fluctuates slightly on a high level over years. After drying, crushing and other physical pretreatment, Enteromorpha residue is grinded into powder. The polysaccharidesutilization is then extracted from the powder, leaving a second-round residue as fertilizer for farmland. In another word, the utilization rate of Enteromorpha is quite low, with only a little potential exploited.

Causes of outbreak

The huge amount of Enteromorpha in Qingdao's coastal area is mainly formed in the Shoal of northern Jiangsu where there is abundance of local aquaculture, and drifts from south to north into the coastline of Yellow Sea (about 10 kilometers a day).

The main reasons affecting the distribution of Enteromorpha include: the impact of other algae on its growth, the water temperature, the salinity and the nutrients in nearby sea.

Monitoring, forecasting and controling

The North Sea Forecast center of SOA monitors the distribution of Enteromorpha in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea by means of remote satellite sensing. Monitoring data on June 28, 2017 showed that the green tide distributed in over 20,000 square kilometers, covering an area of about 187 square kilometers.

After summarizing all the information collected, from the location of the green tide to theocean current that may affect this area, we can obtain the time-shift information of the green tide patches in the next 72 hours and draw a forecast warning map for the green tide with the support of supercomputer.

Utilization status

The annual salvage of floating algae begins in June and ends in August, during which the company will treat it with mature and complete processing system and produce different levels of Enteromorpha. The daily salvage of Enteromorpha must be treated in time and mustn’t be stored to avoid rotting.

The production is mainly used for foddering and extracting trehalose. Enteromorpha powder is also known to be used as soil conditioner, which improves soil quality by adjusting its pH value and advocating green agriculture.

Awareness of Enteromorpha Outbreak

We distribute questionnaires in Qingdao coastal tourist areas, interview the masses, and design network questionnaires. Through the network questionnaire and the results of the offline questionnaire statistics, we found that the masses of the Enteromorpha is very low understanding of the level. The masses believe that the eruption of Enteromorpha has some influence on marine organism, water quality, ecological landscape and tourism development.

People expect to realize the efficient utilization of Enteromorpha.

We have collected 658 questionnaires.

Feasibility analysis,improvement and promotion of project

The feasibility of project implementation was analyzed through investigation. Our human practice works were analyzed and fed back to lab to improve our project.

At the beginning, we initially conceived the use of engineering bacteria to convert cellulose and hemicellulose from Enteromorpha to ethanol, and to express cellulase and hemicellulose by surface display system. At the end of February 2017, we took our initial project design to Beijing Huagong University, Beijing, to visit Professor Fan Lihai, who worked for many years on the utilize of cellulose by yeasts. After discussion, we found that if only one engineered bacterium was used to degrade cellulose, hemicellulose, and then direct conversion of ethanol, the metabolic burden of yeast would be very large, and the efficiency of cellulose degradation would be very low.

So we go back to school and readjust our project design, we decided to divide the whole process into two parts, using enzymes to process the cellulose and hemicellulose in the Enteromorpha, producing the cellubiose and xylose, and then producing ethanol from the engineering bacteria using cellubiose and xylose.

By referring to the literature, we identified 4 enzymes that we used in the final process: β-1, 4-Nechemu, β-glycoside, β-dextran, inner β-dextran enzyme.

Combination with real energy production

We went to the Qingdao Winsea Group Headquarters and their technicians evaluate our project: the development and utilization of algae residue.

Ethanol was produced by fermentation of cellulose and hemicellulose from algae residue.

We went to the Qingdao Winsea Group Jiaozhou Industrial Base, as volunteers, we learn the entire industrial production process (involving the company confidential part does not allow photo records), and visited the Qingdao Winsea Group's product workshop.

The group's technical staff introduced us to the group's main industries: the utilization of Enteromorpha's polysaccharide.

For our project, the group's research and development staff gave the suggestion of a factory-developed biological treatment program, from algae residue processing to ethanol production. Factory production needs to explore the strict fermentation conditions, as well as the domestication of engineering bacteria and so on.

At the same time, we introduce the development trend of Enteromorpha, the refinement of the use of the ingredients in Enteromorpha， the development of higher-value products, promotion to the market.

We have established a long term relationship with Qingdao Winsea Group and look forward to the future of our projects can be used in factory production!

Research and publicity work

In order to let more people understand our projects and synthetic biology, we have conducted a full research and publicity work!

We investigate the impact of the eruption of Enteromorpha on tourism and ecological landscape in Qingdao. By consulting the literature, as well as carry-ing out social investigation and visit to the coastal tourist scenic spot in Qingdao, to the social masses for popular science.

We produce brochures to educate the public on the current situation of Enteromorpha in Qingdao, and establish correct cognition for the people.

At the same time, we call on the public to protect the water, the green environ-mentally sustainable ecological concept, advocating the utilization of Enteromorpha. Establish the correct cognition, let the people participate in the work that the Enteromorpha salvage and govern.

What’s more, we introduce synthetic biology to the public, and let more people know about synthetic biology, and realize that we can use synthetic biology to solve real problems in our lives.

The first three pictures is for us to all ages, each occupation's dissemination of science popularization brochure, carries on the propaganda science populariza-tion.

The last picture is about coastal intertidal zone of the collection of Enteromorpha.