How acidified water environments affect Picochlorum Oklahomense growth and its implications for the future of biofuel research

Abstract

Our research was conducted to test the effects of acidity via lemon juice on algal growth. One potential benefit of our study is that, with this knowledge, we can identify different means of algal manipulation for the progression of research into the viability of Picochlorum Oklahomense as an alternative fuel to fossil fuels. We altered the pH levels in the algal environment by adding 1 milliliter of lemon juice to a total of four bioreactors, creating our experimental group. Our control group was not altered in pH. Once we started collecting our data, we found that the photobioreactor samples with lemon juice had a lower algal population than that of the control groups. This supported our idea that lower pH yields less algae.