A small bio-refinery is converting seaweed into protein, fuel-blendablealcohol and a bacterial soil product in the Mekong Delta province ofBac Lieu.
The refinery is part of a bio-economydemonstration that is also enhancing shrimp quality and yield byco-cropping naturally-occurring aquatic plants as bio-chemicalfeedstock.
The project is a collaboration between the VietnamAcademy of Science and Technology's Institute of Tropical Biology (ITB)and the US-based international project developer Algen Sustainables.
It is funded in part by grants from the governments of Denmark andNetherlands with additional research support from labs in the US andChina.
The project sponsors are looking for an industrialpartner that can help scale up the technologies to serve the regionalchemicals market, says an ITB press release.
There are over350,000 hectares of brackish water ponds in the Mekong Delta, most ofwhich are owned by subsistence farmers who use no energy, nutrient, orprobiotic inputs. The survival rate of shrimp fry is typically less than10 percent.
The project team discovered that certain seaweedvarieties appear naturally in the ponds and serve as a food source forthe shrimp while also clarifying the water.
But with growthrates reaching 15 percent per day during the peak winter season, farmerswere concerned that the plants could rapidly cover a pond and polluteit after dying.
The project team began teaching the farmers howto manage the seaweed as a crop, including thinning it when appropriateto maintain rapid but controlled growth. The excess seaweed is nowcollected by the farmer, dried, and used to make industrial products.-VNA
The refinery is part of a bio-economydemonstration that is also enhancing shrimp quality and yield byco-cropping naturally-occurring aquatic plants as bio-chemicalfeedstock.
The project is a collaboration between the VietnamAcademy of Science and Technology's Institute of Tropical Biology (ITB)and the US-based international project developer Algen Sustainables.
It is funded in part by grants from the governments of Denmark andNetherlands with additional research support from labs in the US andChina.
The project sponsors are looking for an industrialpartner that can help scale up the technologies to serve the regionalchemicals market, says an ITB press release.
There are over350,000 hectares of brackish water ponds in the Mekong Delta, most ofwhich are owned by subsistence farmers who use no energy, nutrient, orprobiotic inputs. The survival rate of shrimp fry is typically less than10 percent.
The project team discovered that certain seaweedvarieties appear naturally in the ponds and serve as a food source forthe shrimp while also clarifying the water.
But with growthrates reaching 15 percent per day during the peak winter season, farmerswere concerned that the plants could rapidly cover a pond and polluteit after dying.
The project team began teaching the farmers howto manage the seaweed as a crop, including thinning it when appropriateto maintain rapid but controlled growth. The excess seaweed is nowcollected by the farmer, dried, and used to make industrial products.-VNA
