Lees Eric W, Tournassat Christophe, Weber Adam Z, Gilbert Pupa U P A
Energy Technologies Area, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver V6T 1Z4, Canada.
J Phys Chem Lett. 2024 Dec 12;15(49):12206-12211. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c02715. Epub 2024 Dec 3.
Coral reefs suffer from climate change, including long-term ocean acidification (OA) and warming and short-term bleaching, tropical storms, and pollution events, all of which are increasing in frequency and severity. It is urgent yet unclear how to intervene to save coral reefs. Reversal of the ocean pH to preindustrial levels could restore coral reefs to their preindustrial growth rates; however, strategies to reverse OA on environmentally relevant scales have not been established. Anecdotally, electrolysis seems to help coral reefs recover from acidification and short-term events, but few uncontrolled studies support such claims. Here, using two independent continuum simulation approaches (COMSOL and CrunchFlow), we show the effect of electrolysis on seawater chemistry relevant to coral reef survival and growth. We conclude that near the negative electrodes, the cathodes, seawater pH, supersaturation, and carbonate concentration all increase significantly. Electrolysis of seawater, therefore, can be used to restore preindustrial ocean conditions locally to save coral reefs, an approach termed eCoral here. We anticipate these simulation results to be the starting point for controlled experiments to test whether seawater electrolysis promotes coral reef growth and restoration, as these simulations predict.
珊瑚礁正遭受气候变化的影响，包括长期的海洋酸化（OA）、变暖，以及短期的白化、热带风暴和污染事件，所有这些的发生频率和严重程度都在增加。如何进行干预以拯救珊瑚礁迫在眉睫，但尚不清楚。将海洋pH值恢复到工业化前的水平可以使珊瑚礁恢复到工业化前的生长速度；然而，尚未确立在与环境相关的尺度上逆转海洋酸化的策略。坊间传闻，电解似乎有助于珊瑚礁从酸化和短期事件中恢复，但很少有无对照研究支持此类说法。在这里，我们使用两种独立的连续介质模拟方法（COMSOL和CrunchFlow），展示了电解对与珊瑚礁生存和生长相关的海水化学的影响。我们得出结论，在负极（即阴极）附近，海水的pH值、过饱和度和碳酸盐浓度均显著增加。因此，海水电解可用于在局部恢复工业化前的海洋条件以拯救珊瑚礁，本文将这种方法称为“电子珊瑚”（eCoral）。我们预计这些模拟结果将成为对照实验的起点，以检验海水电解是否如这些模拟预测的那样能促进珊瑚礁的生长和恢复。
