At Kelp Blue Biotech we aim to develop organic products from sustainably harvested kelp, that are beneficial for the environment and our health, and replace or reduce the need for chemical, environmentally polluting products. We do this using a sustainable biorefinery approach, utilizing 100% of the raw material and preventing waste production. Currently we are focussing on the production of a biostimulant (liquid extract) from the kelp, together with a high quality pulp which can be valorised further into e.g. bio packaging, textiles and agrifeed.
A biostimulant improves soil quality and acts on plants’ metabolic processes, improving nutrient use efficiency, tolerance to abiotic stress and crop quality. This would reduce the need for chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides) in the agricultural sector, and could mitigate the negative impact of climate change on crop production systems.
We identified a promising production process without the need of chemicals to produce a highly active and more concentrated biostimulant together with a pulp that can be used for bio packaging. We learned (and are still learning) more about the key parameters in the process at lab scale (at the Blue City Lab) and this specific project is focussing on the validation of the scalability of this process and the optimization of it at the Bioprocess Pilot Facility. The goal is also to produce a large amount of biostimulant for agricultural tests at different research centres and at potential buyers (e.g. farmers). We will also produce a large amount of pulp which is going to be used for further research on its applicability on bio packaging, the textile industry and to develop innovative sustainable extraction methods for other interesting compounds.
