Beautifully designed, energy-generating bio-panels that suck up carbon dioxide and pump out biomass for use as fuel or fertilizer – that's the idea behind Mexican startup Greenfluidics and its nanotech-enhanced microalgae bioreactor building panels.

The idea of using flat algae tanks on the outside of buildings as part of a sustainability exercise is not new. Indeed, back in 2013, Splitterwerk Architects and engineering company Arup teamed up to create a full-scale demonstration building, called the BIQ, featuring no less than 200 sq m (2,150 sq ft) of algae bioskin panels.

These panels, tinted green by the biomass sandwiched within, serve several purposes. They take a stream of carbon dioxide, captured from what would otherwise be an emissions source, and bubble it through water impregnated with selected strains of algae, which absorb the CO2, as well as sunlight, and photosynthesize, increasing their mass and generating fresh oxygen. The more sunlight is available, the faster the algae will grow, capturing about two pounds of carbon dioxide for each pound of algae.