STTR Phase I: A cost-effective means of culturing large volumes of microalgae for land-based oyster farming.

这项小型企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响是，以牡蛎养殖为跳板，以环境可持续的方式大规模改善贝类生产。今天，在生态压力下，大多数牡蛎都在近岸养殖。该项目推进了利用内部废物流和其他食品工业的废物流培养微藻。该项目的重点是处理最丰富、可持续和免费的工业食品废弃物之一，即啤酒厂的废酵母，以促进陆上和室内藻类的大规模生产。虽然目前主要用于食品和化学工业，但成本较低的藻类产品也可以为食品和饲料、营养药品、药品、生物燃料、生物材料和生物修复服务等领域注入活力。拟议中的项目将推进现有生物反应器和一种新型基质的使用，这种基质与二氧化碳一起，在黑暗中形成异养植物组织，就像树叶在阳光下进行光合作用一样。所提出的底物能够大规模生产单细胞微藻，这些微藻构成了近岸双壳类动物的大部分食物。酵母是用农业级维生素和植物性商品发酵的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is to improve shellfish production at scale and in an environmentally sustainable fashion, using oyster farming as a launching pad. Today, most oysters are farmed nearshore under ecological stress. This project advances the culturing of microalgae using internal waste streams and those from other food industries. The focus of this project is to process one of the most abundant, sustainable, and freely available industrial food wastes, spent yeast from breweries, to facilitate algae production at scale onshore and indoors. Although currently used primarily by the food and chemical industries, the less costly algal product could also energize areas of food and feed, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, biofuels, biomaterials, and bioremediation services.The proposed project will advance the use of off-the-shelf bioreactors and a novel substrate which, along with CO2, form plant tissue heterotrophically in the dark as leaves do photosynthetically in the presence of sunlight. The proposed substrate enables production at scale of the single-celled microalgae that comprise much of the nearshore bivalve diet. The yeast is fermented with both agriculture-grade vitamins and plant-based commodities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.