Making Biomass production Viable
A significant part of SUREAQUA’s focus will be on developing and benchmarking technology and biorefinery approaches, from proof of concept to market implementation with the aim of providing solutions for sustainable development of biomass production in the Nordic region and beyond. Bodil Larsen, Senior Researcher at the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at the Technical University of Denmark will coordinate this work. She, along with Peter Skov, an Associate Professor, is looking forward to the Centre coming to life with opportunities to brainstorm with other Nordic colleagues and complement one another’s expertise. Opportunities for staff and student exchanges between institutions will also be very beneficial for further developing the field.
Putting waste and by-products to good use
In the past two or three years there have been many projects related to the replacement of marine oils in raw materials with other lipids, as well as the replacement of fish meals with other protein sources– both from marine and land-based sources.
“There are many tonnes of by-product already available around the world that are not being used.”
Recent experience both at home and abroad have highlighted the fact that there is an extensive supply of by-products in existence that is not being used. DTU Aqua has also had a number of projects with Danida (the Danish foreign aid organization) in central Africa looking at by-products. As Peter notes, “there are many tonnes of by-product already available around the world that are not being used, or are being used sub-optimally. In parallel with that, in our home countries there are also quite a few side-streams of raw materials, for example from the brewing industry, or from bio-ethanol production. So, actually some pools of raw materials are already there, and nobody has really looked into how useful they are.” In addition, Bodil is investigating the use of insect meal from black soldier fly larvae living off waste from a fish slaughterhouse. She is also conducting research into a single-cell protein fungus that lives off waste cellulose from the Swedish wood industry.
Nordic Collaboration
As Bodil explained, DTU Aqua does a lot of work with fish feed and testing of new raw materials for fish diets, so the SUREAQUA Centre was a natural fit. Although the initial interest in DTU-Aqua joining SUREAQUA was mostly from a research and scientific perspective, Peter and Bodil agreed that “As the other partners were revealed it only made it more interesting for us.
"We also like the fact that SUREAQUA is a Nordic group.
It feels like home!”
SUREAQUA will provide the opportunity to collaborate with others who work on similar problems, from different angles. “What we do is just a small part of the puzzle,” says Peter. “The work done now through SUREAQUA will make a great platform for future work and collaborations. This will be an opportunity to get to know people better, find out who does what, and who the go-to people are in terms of specific goals or challenges.”
Bio
Bodil is a Senior Researcher and Peter is an Associate Professor in the Section for Aquaculture at DTU Aqua, which is the National Institute of Aquatic Resources at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). DTU Aqua works on the sustainable exploitation and management of aquatic resources. Bodil and Peter’s areas of expertise are in fish nutrition, including amino acid and protein metabolism, and bioenergetics of fish in aquaculture. Bodil is coordinating SUREAQUA’s theme on technology and biorefinery.
