Strain validation and biomass production
Leading partner: PHYCOM BV
Objectives:
- (Re-)design, install and commission production units at A4F and PHY, and produce biomass from six prioritised strains of the Aurantiochytrium, Nannochloropsis, Chlorella, Dunaliella, Spirulina and Parachlorella genera. Additional strains available in A4F, IMIC and PHY’s in-house libraries, or through their networks, will be continuously evaluated on basis of their composition and growth conditions for potential inclusion or replacement in the project.
- Establish the optimal biomass production conditions, including harvesting and storage conditions, for each strain to produce sufficient quantities of the targeted products, informed by chemical analysis (both in real time and near-real time) during cultivation and following harvesting.
- Determine the biochemical composition of the microalgae biomass and any potential changes to this arising from drying, storage and transport, and use these dates to determine optimal handling conditions.
Biomass refining
Leading partner: A4F
Objectives:
- To implement and commission a multi-species, multi-process and multi-product biorefinery (MULTI-biorefinery) capable of processing microalgae biomass, based on the integration of individual technologies and unitary processing operations.
- To optimise the operation of the MULTI-biorefinery to maximise production of fractions and building blocks according to end user specifications.
- To, over the course of the project, process biomass into fractions that are all valorised in a zero-waste approach.
Product demonstration and validation
Leading partner: IBET
To ensure the success of MULTI-STR3AM’s ‘market to resources’ approach, end users from the food (Upfield), feed (ForFarmers) and fragrance (International Flavours & Fragrances) sectors are participating in the project as key partners.
These partners will provide input as to their needs in terms of type of compounds, purity, volume and price, as provide ongoing feedback on microalgae ingredients supplied by biorefining operations.
- Evaluate the safety, quality and purity of microalgae products.
- Determine the financial feasibility of taking up microalgae ingredients across the food, feed and fragrance industries.
- Evaluate the performance of microalgae ingredients across food, feed and fragrance applications.
Social, environmental and economic impact assessment
Leading partner: LNEG
Objectives:
Fully assess the techno-economic viability, environmental sustainability and social acceptability of the MULTI-biorefinery with technologies integrated and co-located in order to valorise all fractions of microalgae biomass.
- Perform the biorefinery process design, integration and optimization to determine the best possible solution in terms of CAPEX, OPEX and socio-economic and environmental impacts.
- Perform a comprehensive Life-Cycle Assessment (social, economic and environmental) of the multi-product biorefinery production process. Find bottlenecks and overcome it by increasing sustainability.
- Perform the assessment of the whole value chain of the production process and benchmark process sustainability with traditional production methods of the different products.
- Perform a sensitivity analysis in order to find and implement opportunities to increase sustainability.