Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is recognized as a potential negative emission technology, needed to keep global warming within safe limits. With current technologies, large‐scale implementation of BECCS would compromise food production. Bioenergy derived from phototrophic microorganisms, with direct capture of CO2 from air, could overcome this challenge and become a sustainable way to realize BECCS. Here we present an alkaline capture and conversion system that combines high atmospheric CO2 transfer rates with high and robust phototrophic biomass productivity (15.2 ± 1.0 g/m 2/d). The system is based on a cyanobacterial consortium, that grows at high alkalinity (0.5 mol/L) and a pH swing between 10.4 and 11.2 during growth and harvest cycles.

Phototrophic microorganisms have been proposed as an alternative to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) and to produce biofuels and other valuable products. Low CO2 absorption rates, low volumetric productivities, and inefficient downstream processing, however, currently make algal biotechnology highly energy intensive, expensive, and not economically competitive to produce biofuels. This mini-review summarizes advances made regarding the cultivation of phototrophic microorganisms at highly alkaline conditions, as well as other innovations oriented toward reducing the energy input into the cultivation and processing stages. An evaluation, in terms of energy requirements and energy return on energy invested, is performed for an integrated high-pH, high-alkalinity growth process that uses biofilms. Performance in terms of productivity and expected energy return on energy invested is presented for this process and is compared to previously reported life cycle assessments (LCAs) for systems at near-neutral pH. The cultivation of alkaliphilic phototrophic microorganisms in biofilms is shown to have a significant potential to reduce both energy requirements and capital costs.

Stephanie Hladik is a M.Sc student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Calgary. Through her research she is exploring topics related to the integration of engineering into K-12 curricula. In particular, she is interested in bringing electrical engineering, programming, and the engineering design process into K-12 education. Aside from her research, Stephanie also participates regularly in outreach programs to promote STEM topics in classrooms and beyond.c American Society for Engineering Education, 2016 Design, Implementation and Outcomes of a Comprehensive Professional Development Program for Post Graduate Studies in EngineeringAbstract -This paper describes a 5-year project in which we defined a gap in development of professional skills in postgraduate engineering education, identified effective methods for developing students' professional skills, implemented a series of two required courses to develop them, and evaluated the effectiveness of the program. The courses content, assessments, teaching methodologies, and outcomes are discussed in this paper. Our 5 years of program evaluation are summarized. We describe how our program has been extended to multiple departments in the faculty of engineering and evolved from the model of individual to joint classes and teamteaching. Finally, we discuss effectiveness of those modes of teaching.

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