Thailand Electric Coral Reef Restoration Opens Biorock

Source Layover Guide: Coral island and reef sharks, Siam Bay, Thailand

If you are a diver and have saved money for months to travel all across the world to reach pristine corals and found them to be under sedimentation, bleaching and storms and have gone through this experience not once but more than three times then you know that coral restoration programs are a hot topic worth addressing.

New Heaven Dive School reported on August 23 that the doors for a new future in coral reef restoration is wide open due to the patent expiration of the technology known as Biorocks™. Divers at the report spoke about how the technology can now be updated and put to use. The guys at New Heaven Dive School also presented in the report the story of how the technology was put to water tests in a project in Thailand with full details.

The Biorock Technology can not only can be used to build artificial corals but also to create coral nurseries, avoiding degradation of the marine soil and substrate, solidify sediments, used to build breakwater barriers, avoid beach erosion and is used in aquaculture to harvest lobsters, fish and oysters.

Divers explain that corals are unique in nature because they are “biologically charged”. Through this ion attraction corals can create and solidify carbon calcium carbonate structures. The structures that corals build not only support the living coral and the symbiotic and dependent ocean life community but keeps erosion in balance and waves forces down to non-destructive degrees.

Divers reporting at New Heaven Dive School explained that they have created new modern adaptations to the Biorock technology. Given that the original patent dates back to the late 1970s, much has happened since then. Today Biorocks are equipped with cool flotant solar power structures that “electrify” the structure just as corals do but now do so with clean energy.

Electric corals technology is recognized as one of the most innovative and successful methods for the recreation of coral structures however they are usually passed down and disapproved due to the belief that they are complex and expensive.

Professor Dr. Wolf Hilbertz developed and patented Biorock technology in 1979. Biorocks use electro-accumulation of minerals present in seawater to create calcium carbonate structures. One can think of a Biorock as a magnet which extracts elements from seawater and builds them up like small bricks just as a natural living coral does. When Dr. Wolf Hilbertz patented the innovation he had in mind the use of electrolysis to improve the growing conditions for hard corals and other marine life.

“Many reef managers, coral restorationists, and reef scientists have been waiting for the time when the patent on the mineral accretion technology would expire so they could begin to further develop the technology and independently verify many of the claims made by its creators. Often the year 2015 has been thought to be the year in which the patent would expire, and had many of us waiting. However, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office website...the patent...actually expired on 1 September 2008 due to Non-Payment of Maintenance Fees...” New Heaven Divers explained.

The report gives in detail project costs and construction for the largest Biorock structure in the Gulf of Thailand known as Hin Fai.

“There is limitless potential for refining the seawater electrolysis technique and applying the technology in new ways. As the technology enters the creative commons and becomes more available to those who need it, innovations and creativity will bring about the realization of new benefits that previously have been stifled by patents and legal ownership. The future of this amazing technology is here, and it is up to all of us to decide where we want to take it,” Heaven Divers ended it.

Ocean Life News in Brief

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