Nestlé Portugal Head office is the first building of Nestlé Group installing a Microalgae Bioreactor, which promotes a better air quality, fixing carbon and expelling oxygen.
Microalgae Bio-Buildings is a pioneer project which was developed by InGenius program, a Global Employee Accelarator program in Nestlé. This project is an idea from Hugo Silva, based in Nestlé Portugal, selected to be piloted whithin the InGenius Climate Change Challenge in 2020.
Let's get to know this project better!
Variant: Spirulina
Microalgae are unicellular eukaryotic organisms, one of the oldest ones on Earth.1 They are predominantly photosynthetic and can be found in a wide range of habitats, particularly in marine ecosystems.2
Microalgae are responsible for a significant portion of the oceans biogeochemical cycling and constitute the biggest carbon sink on Earth, with more than 50% of the overall CO2 being adsorbed by these organisms.3
Spirulina is a specific type of cyanobacteria that can be consumed by humans and other animals. Therefore, it can be used as a highly nutritious food suplement as well as in cosmetic products. Additionally, it can be used to produce bioplastics or as a fertilizer.
BIOPLASTICS
SUPERFOOD
& LIVESTOCK
FERTILIZERS
A Bioreactor is commonly known as an apparatus for growing organisms under controlled conditions.
PhotoSynthetica™ is a system developed by EcoLogicStudio that transforms this approach into a building system. Powered by solar energy, it harvests the exceptional photosynthetic potential of living microalgae colonies.
The key benefits of implementing a Bioreactor in a building is its capability of improving the air quality by metabolizing CO2 into O2. In this process carbon is sequestrated through the microalgae which can later be harvested and used as a highly nutritious food supplement.
The PhotoSynthetica™ technology can be adopted in a wide range of urban scenarios, such as green building façades, vegetated roofs, vertical farms, sky gardens, air purifying public spaces, urban parks, vegetated lobbies and courtyards, living walls and screens, air purifying curtains and domestic food kits.
SEQUESTERS GREENHOUSE GASES, ESPECIALLY CO2 EMISSIONS
IMPROVES AIR QUALITY THROUGH OXYGENATION
REDUCES ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND COSTS
Through a special aeration systems the cultures contained in the photobioreactors are bubbled or aerated in order to be maintained in constant motion. While air bubbles naturally rise through the watery medium within the photobioreactor, they come into contact with the voracious algae cells. With this process, CO2 molecules and air pollutants are captured and stored by the algae and grow into biomass.
The average CO2 absorption of this Installation can correspond to about 4 large trees.
This correlates to a recommended daily protein intake of about 45 people with a body weight of 70kg.
1 year of this pilot project corresponds to 4 full grown trees.
InGenius is Nestlé’s Global Employee Innovation Accelerator that consists in a crowdsourcing ideation platform backed by rapid ideation to concept MVP process with entrepreneurship values and a dedicated team to help get us there. More than 75,000 Nestlé employees have generated 8,800 new ideas and submitted over 118,340 votes and 32,000 comments. Microalgae Bio-Buildings is an idea from Hugo Silva, based in Nestlé Portugal, selected to be piloted within the InGenius Climate Change Challenge in 2020.
