A system for collecting matter provides a low energy, low cost and nearly zero pollutant process for extracting suspended and/or dissolved matter in a medium. The system collects the matter on a material which is deployed into the medium, and the matter is extracted off the material. If the extracted matter is algae, then it can be processed into end user commercial products such as pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, cosmetics, biofuels, food products, crop fertilizer, animal feed and polymers. If the extracted matter is oil or bitumen, then it can be recovered at oil spills or in tar sands. If the medium is infected with a harmful algae bloom of cyanobacteria, then the system could not only harvest the algae for processing but also cut off a food source of remaining algae by additionally extracting suspended silt. This invention collects matter in an economically and environmentally viable manner.
