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

生物精炼厂是将可再生生物质原料（如木材、作物、粪便）转化为燃料、动力和化学品的综合设施。生物精炼厂有潜力在减少我们对化石燃料的依赖、减少全球温室气体排放、提供可持续的、碳中性的生物基产品和能源，以满足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，最近受到了极大的关注；因此，避免了在欧洲与以陆地为基础的生物质原料（如油菜）有关的“燃料与食物”的争论。此外，海藻生产不需要淡水、化肥或杀虫剂。然而，迄今为止的大量研究（Bruhn et al., 2011; Adams et al., 2017）表明，与养殖、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）。生物炼制方法通过从海藻中提取生物化学物质来解决这一经济挑战。这些生物化学物质为海藻创造了一个“价值金字塔”（Cefas, 2016），包括附加值商品（价值1- 5英镑/公斤）、特种产品（价值5- 1000英镑/公斤海藻）、生物活性物质（价值超过2000英镑/公斤）和特殊应用（超过5000英镑/公斤）。Oceanium是一家生物技术初创企业，总部位于奥班的欧洲海洋科学园区，正在开发一种创新的海藻生物精炼工艺，用于从英国养殖的海藻中可持续生产食品配料、营养药品和生物包装。海带是一种巨大的棕色海藻，生长在茂密的树丛或森林中，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精炼工艺步骤，用养殖的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来避免大规模野生捕捞海带可能带来的环境破坏。在这个拟议的项目中，我们将开发生物精炼工艺步骤，从海带中共同提取蛋白质和纤维，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关键的特种化学品/食品配料供应商，他们迫切需要新的、可持续的、清洁标签的、无过敏的、纯素的蛋白质和纤维来源，以满足日益增长的消费者需求。通过开发从海藻中提取价值的加工基础设施，我们将使并支持英国/欧盟的可持续海藻养殖业规模化。

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.