I-Corps: High Intensity pulsed light for the removal of off-flavor compounds in aquaculture effluents

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种新技术，通过降低鱼类死亡率和生产更高质量的养殖鱼来增加水产养殖企业的产量。水产养殖业越来越关注具有异味化合物(微生物代谢的芳香副产物)的海产品，这些化合物在集约化循环水产养殖期间和在鱼类组织中的生物积累期间集中。这些化合物会产生令人不快的浑浊味道和气味。海鲜中的无味化合物极大地降低了市场价格，因此，大型商业水产养殖设施将鱼放入二次加工(净化)，通过将鱼禁食在被丢弃的干净水中来降低这些化合物的浓度。这种做法导致用水量和费用大幅增加，产品上市延迟，运营成本增加。这个i-Corps项目是基于高强度脉冲光灯的开发，用于循环水产养殖水、城市污水、工业废水和径流水的消毒。该技术还可用于防止养殖鱼的异味。与同类紫外线(UV)技术相比，这项技术对水的消毒更有效，可以消除水产养殖废水中的异味化合物，这是三文鱼和其他陆上密集循环水产养殖生产商日益关注的问题。该系统的新奇之处在于，它以一种比目前使用的典型低功率汞紫外线灯更强大的方式提供杀菌紫外线和全光谱光。这项技术含有惰性氙气，限制了断灯的可能性。此外，该灯在没有当前UV系统使用的周围流管的情况下，在水中“裸露”运行。省略周围流量管的能力使灯与水直接接触，提高了效率。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a new technology to increase the production of an aquaculture enterprise by reducing fish mortality and producing higher quality farmed fish. Aquaculture industries are increasingly concerned with seafood with off-flavor compounds (aromatic byproducts of microbial metabolism) that are concentrated during intensive recirculating aquaculture and during bioaccumulation in the tissues of fishes. These compounds confer undesirable muddy tastes and smells. Off-flavor compounds in seafood drastically lowers market prices, thus, large commercial aquaculture facilities place fish into secondary processes (depuration) to lower the concentration of these compounds by fasting the fish in clean water that is discarded. This practice results in dramatically higher water use and expense, delays in getting product to market, and increased operational costs. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a high intensity pulsed light lamp for disinfection of recirculating aquaculture water, municipal wastewater, industrial wastewater, and runoff water. The technology can also be used for preventing off-flavor in farmed fish. This technology is more effective for water disinfection than comparable ultraviolet (UV) technologies and is positioned to eliminate off-flavor compounds from aquaculture effluents, an increasing concern for salmon and other land-based, intensive recirculating aquaculture producers. The novelty of the system is that it delivers germicidal UV and full-spectrum light in a more powerful manner than the typical low power mercury UV lamps currently used. This technology contains inert Xenon gas, limiting the possibility of a lamp break. Additionally, the lamp runs "naked" in the water without a surrounding flow tube used in current UV systems. The ability to omit the surrounding flow tube puts the lamp in direct contact with the water, improving efficiency.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.