Effects of Nitrogen on Water Algae Growth

Abstract

The use of algae in biofuels is becoming more and more prominent as the demand for fuels rise. In order to keep up with this demand, more efficient algae growth is needed to produce mass amounts of algae to harvest and use as biofuels. In order to do this, nitrogen can be added to increase the growth rate of algae. This experiment compares the growth rate of algae with a gradual increase in an organic nitrogen source, urea, to algae grown without extra added nitrogen. After conducting our experiment, it was concluded that the more present urea was in the sample, the more algae growth had occurred.