Sustainable development of microalgae-based products using waste streams from aquaculture and seafood processing industry as feedstock (SEALGAEPOWER)

Short description of the project: SEAlgaePower is a three-years project funded by the EU Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership aimed at developing technologies where microalgae can clean nutrient-rich residual waters from aquaculture and seafood processing industry, while simultaneously producing biomass for development of novel food, fish feed, fertiliser, medical, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical products in a sustainable way.

Expected results: The expected results include the developing pilot-scale microalgae cultivation systems and nutrient recovery processes. In addition, the project will deliver optimised cultivation protocols, biorefinery processes for extracting proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates, and prototypes for use in food, feed, MedTech, and fertilisers. Finally, it will also assess environmental and socio-economic aspects associated with the project solutions on wastewater cleaning, microalgae cultivation and biomass valorisation.

Application/Relevance: SEAlgaePower addresses two interconnected challenges: reducing the environmental burden of nutrient-rich side-stream water from aquaculture and creating new sustainable ingredients from microalgal biomass.