Coupling Aquaponic Systems with Sustainable Energy and Food Generation: A Review

Metadata

  • Cite key: delgadoCouplingAquaponicSystems2023
  • Item type: Conference Paper
  • Authors: N. Delgado, K. Chung-Camargo, M. Chen Austin
  • Affiliation: Research Group Energy and Comfort in Bioclimatic Buildings (ECEB), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad Tecnológica de Panamá, Ciudad de Panamá (all authors); Centro de Estudios Multidisciplinario en Ciencias, Ingeniería y Tecnología (CEMCIT-AIP), Ciudad de Panamá (Chen Austin); Sistema Nacional de Investigación (SNI), Ciudad del Saber, Panamá (Chen Austin) (p.1)
  • Journal: Proceedings of the 21st LACCEI International Multi-Conference for Engineering, Education and Technology (LACCEI 2023) [not applicable — conference proceedings, no volume/issue] (2023), pp. 1–10
  • Date: [not reported] — no separate publication date given; conference held 17–21 July 2023, Hybrid Event, Buenos Aires, Argentina (p.1 header)
  • Date added: 2026-07-13
  • DOI: 10.18687/LACCEI2023.1.1.653
  • Funding: Part funded by the Panamanian institution Secretaría Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación (SENACYT) under project code PFID-FID2021-43, and the Sistema Nacional de Investigación (SNI) (Acknowledgment, p.8)
  • URL: https://doi.org/10.18687/LACCEI2023.1.1.653
  • PDF: Delgado et al. - 2023 - Coupling Aquaponic Systems with Sustainable Energy and Food Generation A Review.pdf

Opinion

A bibliometric/literature-mapping review that does state a search strategy (databases, boolean keyword strings, a two-branch filter/classification scheme in Fig. 1), which is enough to clear the schema’s bar for systematic-review rather than the more common default narrative-review — though it falls well short of PRISMA-style rigor: no stated date range, no reported number of records at each screening stage, no PRISMA flow diagram. Its real contribution is a conceptual, unimplemented design proposal (rice-based plant microbial fuel cell + tilapia/spinach aquaponics on saline water for Panama), not new data. Table 1 and Table 2 are useful compilations of others’ figures, but the electrical-generation narrative (p.6–7) misattributes the Netherlands Glyceria maxima study’s duration and reference number relative to its own Table 2 (see Extraction notes, flagged BLOCK) — a caution for using this paper’s Table 2 as-is without checking the primary P-MFC sources.

Abstract

Nowadays society faces different problems regarding populational growth, energetic consumption increase, and food shortages; currently more than 66% of the world population is undernourished. Additionally, present-day food production is becoming constrained due to the scarcity of arable land, freshwater, and the chemical contamination of fertilizers. This scarcity of resources is increasing along with the rapid growth of the human population around the world. This paper performs a systematic review via a bibliometric analysis employing VOSviewer, observing and analyzing scientific research trends in terms of sustainable food and energy generation. We present diverse aquaponic systems and their survival and efficiency rates. In terms of energetic generation, we discuss on the possibility of employing a plant micro fuel cell (P-MFC) with Oryza sativa to power up, resulting in the harvest of both rice and spinach. In terms of fish, the Oreochromis niloticus was selected due to its adaptability, survival rate, and local presence. Additionally, in the context of the scarcity of freshwater, we propose employing saline water in our system.

Summary

This paper is a bibliometric/systematic literature review mapping research trends in aquaponics coupled with sustainable energy and food generation, motivated by the hot, humid climate and resource constraints of Panama. Using VOSviewer keyword co-occurrence analysis (3,103 keywords screened, 83 meeting a minimum-occurrence threshold of five) over searches of Google Scholar, SpringerLink and SciELO with boolean keyword strings, the authors report tilapia and catfish as the most-studied fish and tomato, lettuce, and spinach as the most-studied crops in the aquaponics literature, and summarize five previously published aquaponic case studies’ biological and water-quality parameters in a comparison table (Table 1). In parallel, they review plant microbial fuel cell (P-MFC) literature — a technology that harvests electricity from bacterial breakdown of plant root exudates — describing its mechanism and prerequisites, and tabulating electrode materials, power density, operating duration, and energy-conversion efficiency across a dozen prior P-MFC studies (Table 2). No new empirical data are collected anywhere in the paper; its original contribution is a conceptual (unbuilt, untested) design proposal coupling a rice (Oryza sativa)-based P-MFC with a tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) / spinach (Spinacia oleracea) aquaponic system run on saline rather than fresh water, chosen for local availability in Panama and both species’ documented salinity tolerance. Every quantitative aquaponic or P-MFC performance figure the paper presents originates in a cited secondary source, not in the authors’ own measurement.


Review scope

  • Region / system covered: Global literature search (no geographic restriction stated), framed around and motivated by Panama’s tropical, hot-humid climate; reviewed primary case studies span Mexico, India, USA, Malaysia (aquaponics) and the Netherlands and unspecified other sites (P-MFC studies)
  • Argument: a plant microbial fuel cell (P-MFC), specifically using rice (Oryza sativa), can be coupled with a saline-water tilapia/spinach aquaponic system to address Panama’s combined pressures of rising building energy demand, food insecurity, and freshwater scarcity, producing both electricity and harvestable food from one integrated design
  • Evidence base: stated search strategy — Section II.A/B names three databases (Google Scholar, SpringerLink, SciELO, Fig. 1), gives six explicit boolean keyword-combination strings (e.g. “aquaponics AND water quality,” “recirculating aquaculture AND crop yield”), and describes a two-branch filter/classification scheme (Fig. 1: aquaponics branch classified by “Type of specie,” “Aquaponic arrangement,” “Complies with optimal ranges of biological parameters”; energy branch by “Weather,” “Studies that show performance,” “Keywords”) before arriving at “Final papers.” No stated date range, no reported record counts at each screening stage (e.g. how many hits per database, how many after dedup/screening), and no PRISMA-style flow diagram — meets the schema’s minimum bar for systematic-review (explicit search strings + databases + classification criteria) but is not a rigorous, fully reproducible systematic review by broader standards
  • Typologies or frameworks introduced: Fig. 1 — two-branch keyword-generation/filter approach (sustainable-crops branch vs. bio-inspired-energy branch); Table 1 (p.5) — cross-study comparison of aquaponic biological/water-quality indicators (country, plants, fish, temperature, pH, ammonium, nitrite, DO, nitrate); Table 2 (p.7–8) — cross-study comparison of P-MFC electrode materials, electrical generation, operation time, internal resistance, catalyst, and energy-conversion efficiency; Fig. 5 — the paper’s own proposed hybrid P-MFC + aquaponic system diagram (adapted from cited sources)
  • Key figures cited: aquaponics keyword co-occurrence of 113 (p.3, VOSviewer output, this paper’s own bibliometric result, not secondary); cucumber yield 7.3 vs. 4.6 kg/m² (aquaponics vs. soil) [secondary, cites Nelson et al. 1990] (p.3); tomato-cucumber aquaponics-vs-hydroponics yields (31–59 vs. 41–45 kg/m² tomato; 42–80 vs. 50 kg/m² cucumber) [secondary, cites Savidov 2005] (p.3); Nile tilapia/spinach saline-aquaponics final biomass 5 kg/m³ at 9 g/L salinity [secondary, cites Thomas et al. 2021] (p.4); P-MFC achievable electricity estimate of 21 GJ/ha/year for a 6-month growing season [secondary, cites Strik et al. 2008] (p.7); rice paddies contributing “up to 20% of the world’s methane emissions” [secondary, cites GreenKit 2023 blog post, ref. 46] (p.7)

This paper: VOSviewer (v.1.6.19) keyword co-occurrence mapping (full counting method) on a corpus retrieved via the six boolean search strings, screening 3,103 keywords down to 83 meeting a minimum-occurrence threshold of 5. The resulting overlay map (Fig. 2, colored by average publication year) shows “aquaponics” as the most frequent term (occurrence 113) and shows the field’s terminology shifting away from “nutrient recycling and removal” (older, purple) toward “internet of things, life cycle assessment, renewable energy, and sustainability” (newer, yellow). Crop terms are limited to lettuce, tomato, and spinach; fish terms are dominated by tilapia and catfish. The authors interpret “biomimicry” appearing but not recently used as evidence the concept’s specific metrics are hard to operationalize, though this is their own inference from the color-coded timeline rather than a stated finding of the underlying bibliometric software.

Compared with: (no external comparison — this section reports the paper’s own bibliometric output)

Reviewed aquaponic case studies (Table 1)

This paper: Summarizes five previously published aquaponic studies’ biological and water-quality indicators (country, plants, fish, temperature, pH, ammonium, nitrite, dissolved oxygen, nitrate — Table 1, p.5), none of which are this paper’s own data:

  • Mexico [17]: brackish tilapia effluent (700 O. niloticus x O. aureus hatchlings) grown with Cuban oregano, vaporub, and mint; oregano showed lower height and significantly different stem diameter (p<0.05) vs. traditional sowing, vaporub plants died from salinity stress, mint showed comparable growth between systems but greater stem diameter in aquaponics (p<0.05); fish survival 91.10% with no water exchange [secondary, cites Campos et al. 2013]
  • Mexico [27]: tomato grown with tilapia at three life stages (fingerling/juvenile/adult) plus a hydroponic control; fish survival >90% at all stages (93.81/94.29/91.67%*); tomato growth percentage 68/83/80/81% for fingerling/young/adult/hydroponic control respectively; fingerling and young systems reached the greatest tomato height (86.18 and 85.58 cm); adult system showed poor growth (30.45 cm) and no flowering [secondary, cites Félix-Cuencas et al. 2021]
  • India [23]: Nile tilapia + spinach under inland saline groundwater (3, 6, 9 g/L) vs. freshwater control; final biomass statistically similar across salinities (9 g/L: 5 kg/m³, 6 g/L: 4.92 kg/m³, 3 g/L: 4.68 kg/m³); 9 g/L identified as best overall for this pairing [secondary, cites Thomas et al. 2021]
  • United States [29]: sweet potato cuttings in aquaponics (55 cuttings from 9 starting cuttings after 3 weeks) vastly outperformed soil (9 cuttings from 9); node count significantly higher (p<0.05) in aquaponics, stem diameter similar (p>0.05); total phenol and antioxidant capacity significantly higher in soil-grown leaves; Mn and Zn significantly higher in aquaponics-grown leaves, no significant difference for Fe, P, or Mg [secondary, cites Romano et al. 2022]
  • Malaysia [33]: water spinach + African catfish across five flow rates (0.8–3.2 L/min); recirculating system removed 47–65% BOD5, 67–83% TSS, 64–78% TAN, 68–89% nitrite-N; best combined plant/fish performance at 1.6 L/min; plant height at harvest 45–50 cm, yield 2.0–2.2 kg/carcass [secondary, cites Endut et al. 2009]

*Fish survival for the adult-tilapia/tomato system is given twice with slightly different values — see Extraction notes (WARN-MINOR).

Compared with:

Plant microbial fuel cells (P-MFC) for bioenergy (Table 2)

This paper: Describes the P-MFC mechanism: living plant roots release rhizodeposits (exudates, secretions, lysates, gases) that rhizosphere bacteria metabolize, releasing electrons captured by an anode placed near the roots — up to 60% of net fixed carbon can reach the roots [secondary, cites ref. 40], and rhizodeposits can represent up to 40% of photosynthetic productivity. Prerequisites for candidate plants: roots must tolerate full submersion, must be aquatic/marsh species, and indoor vs. outdoor/local species selection depends on installation site. Oryza sativa and grasses are reported as having the highest power density (Fig. 4 lists specific indoor/outdoor candidate species). Table 2 (p.7–8) compares 13 prior P-MFC study results by plant species, electrode materials, electrical generation (mW/m²), operation time (days), internal resistance (Ω), catalyst, and energy-conversion efficiency (%) — ranging from 6.12 mW/m² (Typha latifolia) to 222 mW/m² (Spartina anglica). The authors also note P-MFCs sited in rice paddies could reduce methane emissions by intercepting electrons that would otherwise be used by methanogens, citing rice paddies’ contribution of “up to 20% of the world’s methane emissions” [secondary, cites ref. 46, a GreenKit web article].

⚠️BLOCK — Netherlands Glyceria maxima P-MFC study: duration and reference number. Body text (p.6–7): “Managing to apply the theory, in a study carried out in The Netherlands, the experiment was carried out for 118 days and a maximum electrical energy production of 67 mW/m2 of anode surface was achieved [38]. In this study, Great manna grass (Glyceria maxima), also called sweet grass, was chosen…” Table 2 (p.7), row 1: “Glyceria maxima | Graphite granules | Graphite felt | 67 | 67 | 525 | O2 | 0.01 | [36]” — same plant and same power density (67 mW/m²), but duration 67 days (not 118) and reference [36] (not [38]). Reference [36] in this paper’s own list is Strik et al. 2008, “Green electricity production with living plants and bacteria in a fuel cell” (the original Glyceria maxima P-MFC paper); reference [38] is Timmers et al. 2010, “Long-term performance of a plant microbial fuel cell with Spartina anglica” — a different plant species entirely, and Table 2’s own [38] rows (Spartina anglica, 79/100 mW/m², 78/33 days) do not match “118 days” either. No entry in Table 2 states 118 days for any Glyceria maxima row, and no other duration in the whole table is 118 days. This cannot be reconciled from the paper’s own text: it is unclear whether “118 days” is a transcription error for “67 days,” whether it belongs to a different, unlisted P-MFC study conflated into this paragraph, or whether the citation number is simply wrong. Recorded UNCLEAR — no trials.csv cell is affected since this is a review with zero rows, but the 118-day/[38] figure should not be repeated as fact without checking Strik et al. (2008) and Timmers et al. (2010) directly. Affects: this paper’s own narrative account of the Netherlands P-MFC case study only; Table 2’s numeric entries are internally self-consistent and unaffected.

Compared with:

  • todo Strik Hamelers Snel 2008 — “Green electricity production with living plants and bacteria in a fuel cell” (ref. [36]); needed to resolve the duration/reference contradiction above (p.6–7, Table 2)
  • todo Timmers Strik Hamelers Buisman 2010 — “Long-term performance of a plant microbial fuel cell with Spartina anglica” (ref. [38]); needed to resolve the duration/reference contradiction above (p.6–7)
  • todo De Schamphelaire et al. 2008 — rice-rhizodeposit P-MFC, ref. [37], Table 2 row “Oryza sativa ssp. indica” 33 mW/m², 134 days (p.7)
  • todo Helder Strik Hamelers Kuhn Blok Buisman 2010 — concurrent bioelectricity/biomass production in three P-MFC species (Spartina anglica, Arundinella anomala, Arundo donax), ref. [39], source of the Fig. 4 plant list and the “grasses are most promising” claim (p.6–7)

Proposed hybrid P-MFC + aquaponic system design for Panama

This paper: Proposes (Fig. 5), but does not build or test, a system pairing a rice (Oryza sativa)-based P-MFC — chosen for local availability in Panama, high reported P-MFC power density, and dietary relevance — with an aquaponic loop growing tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and spinach (Spinacia oleracea), justified by both species’ local presence and adaptability to Panama’s tropical climate. The design specifies saline rather than fresh water, citing [23] (Thomas et al. 2021) as the basis for the biological parameters to be regulated, and framing saline groundwater use as a way to relieve freshwater-scarcity pressure. The P-MFC is proposed to power the aquaponic system’s pump and timer. No performance data, sizing calculations, or cost estimate are given for this proposed system — it remains conceptual.

Compared with: (proposal section; no additional literature comparison beyond the sources already cited above)

Linked claims

Citations to chase

  • todo Campos, López, Avalos, Asiain, Reta (2013) — physicochemical characterization of a brackish tilapia effluent for Cuban oregano/vaporub/mint aquaponics, ref. [17]
  • todo Félix-Cuencas, García-Trejo, López-Tejeida, de León-Ramírez, Soto-Zarazúa (2021) — effect of three tilapia productive stages on tomato growth in hyper-intensive RAS aquaponics, ref. [27]
  • todo Thomas, Verma, Krishna, Prakash, Kumar, Peter (2021) — salinity effect on Nile tilapia and spinach in aquaponics using inland saline groundwater, ref. [23]
  • todo Romano, Francis, Islam, Powell, Fischer (2022) — aquaponics vs. soil sweet potato slip production, ref. [29]
  • todo Endut, Jusoh, Ali, Wan Nik, Hassan (2009) — flow rate effect on water quality and water-spinach growth with African catfish, ref. [33]
  • todo Strik, Hamelers, Snel (2008) — original Glyceria maxima plant microbial fuel cell paper, ref. [36]; needed to resolve the WARN-BLOCK duration/reference contradiction above
  • todo Timmers, Strik, Hamelers, Buisman (2010) — Spartina anglica plant microbial fuel cell long-term performance, ref. [38]; needed to resolve the same contradiction
  • todo De Schamphelaire et al. (2008) — rice-rhizodeposit microbial fuel cell, ref. [37]
  • todo Helder, Strik, Hamelers, Kuhn, Blok, Buisman (2010) — concurrent bioelectricity/biomass in three P-MFC plant species, ref. [39]
  • todo Nelson, Sanders, Hodges, McMurtry (1990) — sand-culture vegetables with recirculated aquacultural effluent, source of the cucumber/tomato aquaponics-vs-soil comparison, ref. [13]
  • todo Savidov (2005) — Alberta aquaponics production/market evaluation, source of the tomato/cucumber aquaponics-vs-hydroponics yield comparison, ref. [15]
  • todo Graber and Junge (2009) — nutrient recycling from fish wastewater by vegetable production, source of the eggplant/tomato/cucumber vs. hydroponics comparison, ref. [16]

Extraction notes

Severity tally: 1 BLOCK, 0 MATERIAL, 0 CHECK, 1 MINOR -> quality: caution (1 BLOCK meets the caution threshold per SCHEMA.md; the BLOCK affects only this review’s own secondary narration of a cited study, not any extracted cell, since this paper produces zero trials.csv rows).

  • ⚠️BLOCK — Netherlands Glyceria maxima P-MFC study duration/reference — see full evidence under “Plant microbial fuel cells (P-MFC) for bioenergy” above. Not entered in REVIEW.md per this task’s instruction not to touch that file; flagging here and in the batch report for the merge step to pick up.
  • ⚠️MINOR — Fish survival for the adult-tilapia/tomato system (Félix-Cuencas et al., ref. [27]) is stated as “91.67%” in one sentence (p.4, “a survival rate of fish greater than 90% was achieved… 91.67% in the case of adults”) and “91.66%” two sentences later (p.4, “the lowest survival rate was in the tank with adult tilapia (91.66%)”). A 0.01-point rounding discrepancy in this review’s own restatement of a secondary source; does not affect any extracted cell (no trials.csv row exists for this paper).
  • Not flagged as a contradiction, noted only: the same paragraph (p.3–4) states “at the end, they reflected an average weight gain of 206.01 kg on day 120” for 700 tilapia hatchlings with an initial average weight of 0.7 g — “average” here almost certainly describes total population biomass gain (700 fish x ~294 g/fish approx 206 kg), not a per-fish average, since a 206 kg per-fish gain is biologically impossible for tilapia. This reads as loose wording carried over from or introduced when summarizing the secondary source (ref. [17], Campos et al. 2013), not an internal contradiction between two stated values in this review — only one figure is given. No cell is affected (no trials.csv row for this paper).

Metadata discrepancy (not a data contradiction): the title printed on the PDF itself (p.1, both the running head and the full title block) is “Coupling Aquaponic Systems with Sustainable Energy and Food Generation for a Tropical Climate, in Panama: A Review” — longer than the title recorded in zotero-export.csv (“Coupling Aquaponic Systems with Sustainable Energy and Food Generation: A Review”), which is what this note’s frontmatter uses per the task’s metadata-priority rule (Zotero over PDF). Both refer to the same paper — same DOI, authors, and abstract confirmed identical between the PDF and the Zotero row — so this is treated as a title-field truncation in the Zotero record, not a different work. Two duplicate rows for this same paper exist in zotero-export.csv (item keys 28T8UYCQ and NU86FH27), both with the shorter title; neither carries the “Tropical Climate, in Panama” portion.

[not reported] / [unclear] fields:

  • Exact publication date (month/day) — only the year (2023) and the conference dates (17–21 July 2023) are available; no separate “published online” or “issue date” is stated anywhere in the paper or in zotero-export.csv.
  • Author individual affiliations beyond what’s printed in the byline footnotes (no ORCID, no additional department detail beyond what’s quoted above).
  • Exact number of records retrieved/screened/included at each stage of the search strategy — the paper names its databases, search strings, and classification criteria (sufficient to qualify as systematic-review per SCHEMA.md’s stated test) but never reports how many records resulted from each database or search string, nor how many survived each filter step before reaching “Final papers” (Fig. 1). This is a genuine methodological gap in the paper’s own reporting, not something this extraction can supply.
  • Search date range (start/end dates of the literature search) — not stated.

CSV rows: none produced. This is a systematic-review per SCHEMA.md — the authors collected no original empirical data anywhere in the paper (every biological/water-quality figure in Table 1 and every P-MFC performance figure in Table 2 is attributed to a separate cited source); the paper’s own original contribution is a conceptual design proposal (Fig. 5) that was not built or tested, so it has no measured outcomes to record either. Both out/delgadoCouplingAquaponicSystems2023.trials.csv and out/delgadoCouplingAquaponicSystems2023.plant.csv are header-only, per SCHEMA.md Part 1 (“Only experiment, quasi-experiment, field-trial, and exploratory produce CSV rows… Never create trial rows from a review”).

Type classification, justified: systematic-review, not the more common default narrative-review. Per SCHEMA.md decision rule 4, the distinguishing test is whether the paper states a search string, databases, and inclusion criteria. This paper does all three explicitly: Section II.A names the search operators (AND/OR) and gives six specific boolean keyword-combination strings; Fig. 1 names three databases (Google Scholar, SpringerLink, SciELO) and lays out a two-branch classification/filter scheme (sustainable-crops branch: “Type of specie,” “Aquaponic arrangement,” “Complies with optimal ranges of biological parameters”; energy branch: “Weather,” “Studies that show performance,” “Keywords”) leading to “Final papers.” The abstract itself self-labels the work “a systematic review via a bibliometric analysis.” This clears the schema’s stated bar even though the paper does not report a PRISMA flow, record counts, or a search date range (noted above as a genuine reporting gap, not grounds to downgrade the classification — the schema’s test is presence of a stated method, not its rigor). Per SCHEMA.md decision rule 1, the authors collected no original data (confirmed by close reading — every quantitative figure in Tables 1 and 2 carries a bracketed citation to a different, external paper), ruling out any primary-research type. The paper is genuinely mixed in one respect: Section III.D (“Proposing a preliminary system”) is a conceptual design proposal rather than a literature synthesis — noted here per SCHEMA.md’s rule for mixed papers, but it introduces no original data or results, so it does not change the dominant classification.

Tags: Meta/Type/Systematic-Review (new leaf — no existing systematic-review leaf in the vault; other Meta/Type/ leaves observed are Experiment, Exploratory, Field-trial, Meta-analysis, Modelling, Narrative-Review, Policy, so Systematic-Review follows the same Title-Case convention). Meta/Region/Central-America (new leaf — no existing Central-America facet in the vault; existing region leaves are Africa, Europe, Global, Middle-East, North-America/NorthAmerica, South-America, South-Asia). Region chosen as Central-America rather than Global because, following the precedent set by abusinSustainableFoodProduction2020 (Qatar-specific argument -> Middle-East, not Global, despite citing worldwide sources), this paper’s title, introduction, and proposed design are explicitly framed around Panama’s tropical climate and local species availability, even though the cited case studies span multiple continents. No Meta/Fish/ or Meta/Plant/ tags: per this task’s guidance, a bibliometric/energy-coupling review does not warrant organism tags by default; tilapia, spinach, and rice are discussed at length in the proposed-design section as the authors’ own selections for a conceptual system, but no organism is empirically studied by the authors themselves — judgment call noted here rather than tagging Meta/Fish/Tilapia or Meta/Plant/Spinach/Meta/Plant/Rice.

Water-quality panel: Table 1’s five-study water-chemistry comparison (temperature, pH, ammonium, nitrite, DO, nitrate) is all secondary (drawn from refs [17], [23], [27], [29], [33]) and is not this paper’s own measurement; per SCHEMA.md, trial-mean water chemistry from a review is not extracted into trials.csv (that would double-count the primary studies if they are separately extracted elsewhere in the vault). Not flagged as “too valuable to discard” — these five studies are individually citable in Citations to chase above for separate extraction if their PDFs are obtained.


Source: Delgado et al. - 2023 - Coupling Aquaponic Systems with Sustainable Energy and Food Generation A Review.pdf