School of Arts and Sciences, Natural Science Department, Lebanese American University, Chouran, Beirut, 1102 2801, Lebanon.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Mar;29(12):16912-16924. doi: 10.1007/s11356-021-16986-6. Epub 2021 Oct 16.
Azolla is a group of aquatic floating plants that can achieve very high growth rates compared to other aquatic macrophytes, with a doubling time of 2-5 days under optimal growing conditions. The ability of Azolla to grow at such rapid rates allows for the opportunity of utilizing it as a method to sequester a significant amount of atmospheric CO in the form of biomass, which can be locked away to completely remove the carbon from the active carbon cycle, or which can be used in various applications such as animal feeds, biofertilizers, and biofuel production, which in turn will contribute to reduction in the fossil CO emissions. In this desktop study, the potential use of Azolla for mitigating the annual increase in the atmospheric CO levels was addressed, which were estimated at 18.9 billion tons of CO per year. A theoretical setup of 1-ha ponds was assessed to estimate the total Azolla growing area required for counterbalancing the annual atmospheric CO increase. Each 1-ha pond was found capable of capturing 21,266 kg of CO (C) per year. The calculated required total area to mitigate the total annual increase was estimated to be 1,018,023 km (equivalent to around a fifth of the Amazon forest area). Sensitivity analysis, which was based on the variations in the productivity of Azolla due to growing conditions, indicated that the required area would range between 763,518 and 1,527,036 km. This study provides a novel natural method for CO sequestration that has lower environmental impacts compared to conventional sequestration technologies as an alternative green approach for mitigating the effects of fossil fuels.
满江红是一种水生漂浮植物，与其他水生大型植物相比，满江红具有非常高的生长速度，在最佳生长条件下，满江红的倍增时间为 2-5 天。满江红能够如此快速地生长，为将其作为一种方法来以生物质的形式固定大量大气 CO 提供了机会，这些生物质可以被封存起来，从而将碳完全从活性碳循环中去除，也可以用于动物饲料、生物肥料和生物燃料生产等各种应用，从而有助于减少化石 CO 的排放。在这项桌面研究中，探讨了满江红在减缓大气 CO 水平的年度增长方面的潜在应用，据估计，每年大气 CO 的增长为 189 亿吨。评估了 1 公顷池塘的理论设置，以估算抵消年度大气 CO 增长所需的满江红总生长面积。发现每个 1 公顷池塘每年能够捕获 21266 公斤的 CO（C）。为缓解总年度增长所需的计算总面积估计为 1018023 平方公里（相当于亚马逊森林面积的五分之一左右）。基于满江红生长条件下生产力的变化进行的敏感性分析表明，所需的面积将在 763518 到 1527036 平方公里之间变化。这项研究提供了一种新的 CO 固存方法，与传统固存技术相比，对环境的影响较小，是一种替代绿色方法，可减轻化石燃料的影响。
