Algae-Powered Buildings: A Review of an Innovative, Sustainable Approach in the Built Environment

Abstract

Environmental pollution, global warming, energy consumption, and limited natural resources are some key factors from which today’s built environment faces interrelated problems and their management plays a vital role in sustainability. The building sector is involved in 35% of global energy usage and 40% of energy related CO2 emissions. Application of bioactive elements on buildings’ façades is a novel approach for solving the above-mentioned problems. Management of some important factors such as thermal comfort, energy efficiency, wastewater treatment, and CO2 capture is positively affected by bioactive façades because of their environmentally friendly nature. They also have positive effects on global warming, pollution control, social wealth, and sustainable development on a larger scale. The buildings integrated with photobioreactors (PBRs) can meet their thermal needs due to thermal insulation, shading, solar collection, and light-to-biomass conversion. Energy savings up to 30% are estimated to be met by PBR-integrated buildings due to reduced heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting loads. The above amount of energy saving results in less CO2 emission. Moreover, the algae-integrated buildings can sequester CO2 with an average sequestration rate of 5 g/ft2/day when optimum growing environments and operation modes are implemented. This study is an overview of microalgae intervention and PBR-adapted buildings as an innovative approach for energy efficiency in the built environment with regard to implemented or speculative cases, pros and cons, challenges, and prospects.