Mass production of microalgae beads

How to prepare beads (a very brief instruction).

1. Pour sodium alginate in water (3 percent sodium alginate from total volume of water)

2. Mix well until sodium fully dissolve. 

3. Put algae and mix well (3 percent algae from total volume of sodium alginate solution). As my algae is filamentous and clumping, it is quite challenging to mix the algae uniformly.

4. Drop the solution into calcium carbonate. You will see the drops hardened in calcium carbonate and become round beads.

Here I use two plastic containers with a flat bottom. We start with the lower container. Fill the container with calcium carbonate and put at slow stirring. For the upper container, punch a few holes with the size of 2 mm and stack it on the lower container. Then, pour the sodium alginate solution into the upper container. As soon as you fill the sodium alginate solution, it will drop into the lower container and form into round beads. 

The falling distance of the sodium alginate solution into calcium carbonate is important to make sure that a round bead can be formed

My beads