Location	Funding	Institution	Principal Investigator(s)
Hawaii	$99,970	University of Hawaii at Mānoa	Zhi-Yan (Rock) Du, PhD

Overall Goals
To design and manufacture a Smart PBR, and simultaneously develop sustainable fungal filters and an affordable BioCube system to harvest microalgae incubated in the new PBRs, which will provide an affordable and efficient algal production system for aquafeed and algal industries.

Objectives
1. Design and develop prototypes of Smart PBR with controls of various growth conditions, including light, temperature, CO2/oxygen, pH, nutrients, and monitoring modules.
2. Test and optimize the controlling modules of the PBRs.
3. Optimize the cultivation and biomass of target microalgae.
4. Develop sustainable fungal filters for the best filtration performance for commercial harvesting strains of microalgae such as Chlamydomonas, Chlorella, Hamatococus, Nannochloropsis, Spirulina, Tetraselmis, and Thalassiosira.
5. Determine the efficiency and capacity of the fungal filters for how much algae (cell numbers and biomass) can be collected by a standard fungal filter before being saturated.
6. Analyze the nutritional composition of alga-fungus biomass, including proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and fatty acids.
7. Manufacture prototypes of PBR and BioCube with durable and affordable materials such as clear polycarbonate parts and add monitoring systems using Raspberry Pi cameras and optical sensors.
8. Test and optimize the PBR & BioCube package for algal production.