OCEAN MINERALS: EARTH'S ELEMENT SOUP - ITS PRODUCTION AND USE IN AQUACULTURE

The ocean is a reservoir for almost all known elements. The synergistic beneficial effects of these elements on living organism has been speculated for a long time. However, six elements which make up 99% of the dissolved salt act as a gatekeeper, preventing the access of the other elements in seawater. This can be overcome by concentrating seawater. When seawater is concentrated, the elements precipitate out in order, starting with the major salts, such as sodium chloride. At one stage, the major salts are significantly reduced and other elements are concentrated, making it a natural diverse element solution. In order to tap into this abundant resource, a simple method to accurately reproduce seawater concentrate is needed. This study investigated the possibility of heat evaporating seawater up to 99.9%, using density of solution as the sole parameter for the consistent reproduction of various seawater concentrate. It was found that the representative elements in seawater concentrate, is strongly correlated with density, even in ultra concentrated form. This signify that various seawater concentrate, with consistent element profile can be reproduced to the targeted stage by using density as its sole indicator, making the production of seawater concentrate feasible for everyone. Various seawater concentrate produced were tested on an algae and it was found that seawater concentrate with solution density 1.348g/ml gave the best result, having 14.2% higher final yield and significantly lower nutrient use. It appeared that the diversity of elements in seawater, captured by concentrating seawater, is beneficial to algae. The research to investigate its effects on plants and other organism is ongoing at the time of this abstract.