Salt River Project (SRP) and the Conservation and Renewable Energy Collaboratory (CREC) at ASU’s College of Technology and Innovation (CTI) has selected four projects to be funded to research renewable energy and conservation. Senior Sustainability Scientist Milt Sommerfeld's work on algae and water quality will be allocated funds from the $170,000 grant.
"Industry partners like SRP are the foundation of the college and provide an important component of our project-based learning and applied research model," says Mitzi Montoya, vice provost and dean of CTI.
Sommerfeld hopes to use algae to capture water contaminants and then use the resulting algae to produce biomass for fuel, feed, or fertilizer. The research will be conducted at the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation where Sommerfeld serves as co-director.