After Tuesday's meeting, I thought of a simple design that might serve as a good starting point. I built frame for meshing to collect nitrate with PVC piping and it cost $6 total, although I had some left over. The box is 2 ft. x 2 ft. and the part that sticks out is 15 in.
It was very easy to assemble, I was able to cut the pieces and put it together without help, and it took about 45 minutes.
Image link: http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll219/amariah118/Inventors%20Club%20Competition/IMG_7359.jpg
This is an overview picture - I tried labeling each piece of PVC and also the joints, I hope you all can see it. Everything is 1/2 in. pipes, except "top" and "bottom", which are 3/4 in. and meant to slide over the 1/2 in pipes that they are placed above and below of, #5 and #6. "Top" and "bottom" will have mesh between them, so when you slide it over #5 and #6, it will be held out in the water. Joint "E" is where the whole thing will be hung, so you can easily have as many as you want of these in a row. To remove the "top" and "bottom" bar: when it is hanging in the water, you press on #1, so the whole thing will rotate, and the mesh will come out of the water, when you can remove it and take off the things on it.
Here is a picture of it when it is put together:
http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll219/amariah118/Inventors%20Club%20Competition/IMG_7365.jpg
And here is a picture of how the 3/4 in. pipes will slide over the 1/2 in. pipes
http://i289.photobucket.com/albums/ll219/amariah118/Inventors%20Club%20Competition/IMG_7364.jpg
I hope that made sense, and if you have questions, I am happy to answer. There are some improvements that I can already think of.
This has some nice qualities.
ReplyDeleteHow long would the units be?
How would the panels and mesh and periphyton be removed?
Are you able to see the entire picture? They are cut off half way in the blog. If you right click and click on "View picture", you will be able to see the entire thing.
ReplyDeleteThe units can be however big, the design I made was 2 ft. by 2 ft. in this case, but can be scaled to any size.
To remove the panels, here are two different ideas: The 1/2 piping that the 3/4 piping goes over could have a stopper on both ends to keep the panel in place, and then when you want to take it off, remove the stopper and slide off the 3/4 in. piping. Anything on the mesh, I have yet to really think about in depth. I need to know more about what kinds of things will be growing on it to make a good decision as to what will be spanned across "top" and "bottom".
Looks interesting.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried testing it yet to see how effective it is?
I think we're pretty early on to know how effective we'll be, Gordon. Just feeling out some ideas.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, I like that this design can easily be reproduced to test mesh prototypes.
Is there an advantage to having the PVC pipes nesting over each other vs. creating a sleeve with the mesh that rests on the PVC?
I haven't tested it yet, but Andrew W. said that there was somewhere we could test it.
ReplyDeleteThere is no advantage, I just thought it might give it a more solid feel, something more strong than just having a mesh wrapping around, but there really isn't a real advantage I can think of. I think that we need to officially start thinking about different meshings we can use. Are there any resources you think might be helpful in finding ideas?
Strength vs. materials cost is a trade-off we'll probably encounter often. We'll be trying to promote the highest colonization rate from nutritious algal types onto the most surface area possible that can be harvested as easily as possible.
ReplyDeleteWe'll need to do some basic research to find an ideal substrate.
Aquamats were a commercially produced item and were someone else's best attempt. Begin there with the information on their website. We'll need to do some literature searches in the basic biological literature to see if anything out there can beat it.
There are plenty of places the substrates can be tested when the time comes.