SEABIOCAT

Description

The SEABIOCAT is a marine-biotechnology proposal which aligns with the priority area Blue Bioresources – Blue Biotechnology of the Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership. SEABIOCAT addresses major global challenges of energy and the environment, developing sustainable next generation macroalgal biomass as an alternative to fossil-fuel- and 1st generation biomass for bulk generation of biobased platform-chemical. Specifically, SEABIOCAT will establish a one-reactor Cell-Free System (CFS) utilizing robust thermostable enzymes for refining polysaccharides from brown macroalgae to building blocks for biopolymers/bioplastic synthesis. The biopolymer market is forecasted to grow immensely in the foreseeable future, and bioresources are needed to replace fossil-fuel based feedstock. The expansion is anticipated to be hampered by a scarcity of sustainable biomass. Brown macroalgae are an abundant underexploited bioresource, which can be cultivated in bulk, not competing with terrestrial plant crops for space, water or nutrients, biomass, and they are new to industry as an industrial feedstock resource. SEABIOCAT will increase utilization of this mostly untapped vast bioresource supplementing or supplanting terrestrial feedstocks and develop bioconversion technologies for processing and production of important value-added platform-chemicals and biopolymers. It will help to make the macroalgal biorefinery and associated biobased chemical producers economically more viable, by increasing bulk production of biobased products, by increasing resource efficiency and by expanding product range. 

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will be a vital part of the project for assessing the sustainability and environmental impacts of the process and products. This is important because to succeed on the market, bio-based products need to prove their sustainability and lower environmental impact when compared to petrochemical products. SEABIOCAT is of special significance for Northern Europe with long shorelines and access to vast sea areas for offshore cultivation of brown macroalgae. It focuses especially on the north Atlantic Ocean (Artics) sea-basins. However, the proposed biorefinery process can be implemented everywhere close to sea to maintain sustainability. The Baltic sea and the North See have representatives in the consortium. SEABIOTEC will help economic growth and job creation in rural coastal regions where macroalgae are cultivated and harvested, increase employment and countereffect declining maritime industry in these regions. 

The consortium brings together groups with highly competent and complementary expertise and experience in the supply and pre-processing of biomass, production optimization, and process and product design. MATIS (Iceland), an R&D organisation, with a long experience and expertise in marine biotechnology, will be responsible for overall management and coordination of the project including the organizational and financial management.
 

Coordinator: Matís ltd., Matís ltd., Iceland

Partners: 

• Lund University, ULUND, Sweden
• Technical University of Denmark, Novo Nordisk Foundation for Biosustainability, DTU, Denmark
• LL-BioEconomy, LL-Bio, Denmark
• University of Amsterdam, UvA, Netherlands

Self-funded partner: 

• Ocean Rainforest Sp/F, ORF, Faroe Islands