Oceanium: biorefining kelp to produce novel alternative protein and fibre sources

Oceanium：生物精炼海带以生产新型替代蛋白质和纤维来源

• 批准号: 44159
• 金额: $ 22.25万
• 依托单位: OCEANIUM LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Study
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=44159
• 关键词: Oceanium; biorefining; kelp; produce; novel

Biorefineries are integrated facilities that convert renewable biomass raw materials (e.g., wood, crops, manure) into fuel, power, and chemicals. Biorefineries have the potential to play an important role in reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, and delivering sustainable, carbon-neutral biobased products and energy to meet the needs of our rising global population.Seaweed has recently received significant attention as a potential biomass raw material that does not require land during production; thus, avoiding the "fuel versus food" debate in Europe associated with land-based biomass raw materials such as oilseed rape. In addition, seaweed production does not require freshwater, fertiliser, or insecticides.However, numerous studies to date (Bruhn et al., 2011; Adams et al., 2017) have demonstrated that the increased costs associated with cultivating, harvesting, transporting, and processing seaweed make seaweed uneconomic as a sole source of biofuel (value of less than £1/kg; Cefas, 2016). A biorefinery approach addresses this economic challenge by co-extracting biochemicals from seaweed. These biochemicals create a "pyramid of value" for seaweed (Cefas, 2016), encompassing added-value commodities (value of £1-£5/kg), speciality products (value of £5-£1,000/kg seaweed), bioactives (value of more than £2,000/kg), and special applications (more than £5,000/kg).Based in the European Marine Science Park in Oban, Oceanium is a biotech start-up developing an innovative seaweed biorefinery process for the sustainable production of food ingredients, nutraceuticals, and biopackaging from UK farmed kelp. Kelps are large brown seaweeds, which grow in dense growths or forests, providing habitats for numerous invertebrates, fish, marine mammals, and birds.With funding from Innovate UK/Sky Ocean Ventures, we are currently developing the biorefinery process steps for producing marine-safe biopackaging from farmed kelp, as a replacement for plastics. We rely on sustainably farmed kelp to avoid the environmental damage potentially associated with large-scale wild harvesting of kelp.In this proposed project, we will develop the biorefinery process steps for co-extraction of protein and fibre from kelp, delivering novel alternative protein and fibre sources. We will sell these new products to key speciality chemicals/food ingredient suppliers, who are urgently looking for new, sustainable, clean-label, allergy-free, and vegan sources of protein and fibre to meet growing consumer demand.By developing the processing infrastructure for extracting value from seaweed, we will enable and support the sustainable seaweed farming industry in the UK/EU to scale.

生物精炼厂是将可再生生物质原料（例如，木材、农作物、粪肥）转化为燃料、动力和化学品。生物精炼厂有可能在减少我们对化石燃料的依赖、减少全球温室气体排放以及提供可持续的、碳中和的生物基产品和能源以满足我们不断增长的全球人口的需求方面发挥重要作用。海藻作为一种潜在的生物质原料，在生产过程中不需要土地，因此，避免了欧洲与油菜籽等陆地生物质原料有关的“燃料与粮食”辩论。此外，海藻生产不需要淡水、肥料或杀虫剂。2011;亚当斯等人，2017年）已经证明，与种植，收获，运输和加工海藻相关的成本增加使得海藻作为生物燃料的唯一来源不经济（价值低于1英镑/公斤; Cefas，2016年）。生物精炼方法通过从海藻中共同提取生物化学物质来解决这一经济挑战。这些生化物质为海藻创造了一个“价值金字塔”（Cefas，2016），包括增值商品（价值1- 5英镑/公斤），特殊产品（价值5- 1，000英镑/公斤海藻），生物活性物质（价值超过2,000英镑/公斤），以及特殊应用（超过5,000英镑/公斤）。总部设在奥班的欧洲海洋科学园，海洋生物是一家生物技术初创企业，开发一种创新的海藻生物精炼工艺，用于可持续生产食品配料，营养保健品，和英国养殖海藻的生物包装。海带是一种大型的棕色海藻，生长在茂密的森林中，为许多无脊椎动物、鱼类、海洋哺乳动物和鸟类提供栖息地。在Innovate UK/Sky Ocean Ventures的资助下，我们目前正在开发生物炼制工艺步骤，以养殖海带生产海洋安全的生物包装，作为塑料的替代品。我们依靠可持续养殖的海带，以避免大规模野生捕捞海带可能造成的环境破坏。在这个拟议项目中，我们将开发生物精炼工艺步骤，从海带中共提取蛋白质和纤维，提供新的替代蛋白质和纤维来源。我们将把这些新产品销售给主要的特种化学品/食品配料供应商，这些供应商正在迫切寻找新的、可持续的、清洁标签的、无过敏的和纯素的蛋白质和纤维来源，以满足不断增长的消费者需求。通过开发从海藻中提取价值的加工基础设施，我们将使英国/欧盟的可持续海藻养殖业能够实现并支持其规模化。