BlueCC – Exploração comercial de colágeno e quitina de origem marinha

Coordenador

Runar Gjerp Solstad

Investigador Responsável CESAM

Ana Isabel Lillebø

Programa

ERA-Net Cofund scheme (BLUEBIO/0001/2019)

Datas

01/06/2020 - 31/12/2023

Instituições Participantes

  • internacional

DOI

10.54499/BLUEBIO/0001/2019

Over the coming decades, the world will witness increased competition for limited and finite natural resources. Bio-waste is estimated at up to 138 million tons per year in the EU, of which up to 40% goes to landfill. This includes large amounts of by-catches from the fisheries. Other sources of poorly utilized marine biomass are cleaner fish used in aquaculture, and several invasive marine species which are currently causing devastation to local ecosystems. This represents not only problems, but also opportunities for innovative actions in the EU to better develop targeted uses of what is currently wasted or disturbing our ecosystems. The BlueCC project aims to take underutilised species such as invasive marine species, by-catch and cleaner fish from the aquaculture industry to develop new eco-friendly marine ingredients and products in a market acceptance approach. The focus will be on sustainably exploiting chitin and collagen produced by invasive crabs, jellyfish, starfish and cleaner fish, respectively, and demonstrate prototype products containing these polymers and/or their hydrolysates. To succeed with product development of research-intense products such as chitin/chitosan and collagen, we will apply a strong emphasis on market needs and insights throughout the project. BlueCC will be carried out by an interdisciplinary team and is divided into six main work packages addressing market driven concept development, sustainable chitin/chitosan and collagen demonstrators, characterization of the novel marine ingredients, including in vitro documentation of e.g. anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects, and finally, commercialization feasibility in an RRI framework. Altogether, BlueCC will in a sustainable and efficient manner exploit underutilized marine raw materials, from laboratory to prototype demonstration, to reach collagen- and chitin/chitosan-based bioactive demonstrators with potential commercial uses reaching the Technology Readiness Level 7.

membros do CESAM no projeto

Helena Vieira

Investigadora Coordenadora e ERA CHAIR Holder

Ana Isabel Lillebø

Investigadora Principal com Agregação

Ricardo Jorge Guerra Calado

Investigador Principal com Agregação