Algae Tiles

Good News Good Planet

For more delicious news, go to www.GoodNewsGoodPlanet.com, and scroll to bottom for more ways to find the feel good stuff!* ALGAE TILES Industrial wastewater is a hazard to everyone, and finding ways to clean it before it harms the local community is challenging. Enter Indian Architect, Shneel Malik and her invention,” Indus”, with its Bio-Integrated Design, or Bio-ID tile system. She has created ceramic tiles that are designed to clean dyes and toxic metals from wastewater. This system is specifically geared toward artisans in countries like India, where water is most often toxic. Local small-scale jewelry makers and textile dyers rely on water from natural streams nearby, which are heavily contaminated with cadmium, lead, and arsenic—a problem created by those industries themselves. Indus offers an affordable way for local artisans to reclaim their waste water and reuse it to create their crafts. The modular, clay tiles are designed to emulate the veins of leaves, distributing water evenly. Their narrow channels are filled with a micro algae suspended in a gel. Waste water is poured over the tiles and runs through the channels where the algae cleans it through bio-remediation, destroying contaminants and purifying the water in a sustainable way. The pollutants are trapped and stored within the algae cells. Once saturated, the algae can be replaced and the base tiles can be reused. The modular tiles fit together to form a wall which can be adjusted to any size and need. They are quite attractive too, shaped like fanned Ginkgo leaves that fit together. While still in its early stages, initial results are promising, yielding significant reductions of heavy metals. A second phase of Indus is in the works, where the hydrogel is processed to not only remove the heavy metals from the algae cells, but recycle them too. Eventually, the team wants to tailor the tiles with specific kinds of algae to trap different kinds of metals, adapting the tiles to the specific needs of different industries around the world. #### *Hungry for more of the Good Stuff? Search "Good News Good Planet" on YouTube, Instagram, Patreon, Alexa and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.