The Porter School of Environmental Studies
Marine Biorefineries Initiative
The transition from fossil-based industries towards low carbon, resource efficient and
sustainable ones and sustainable food supply is a major challenge for the next decades. To
address these challenges multiple biomass/biotechnologies programs have been launched.
Currently, these large programs focus mainly on land crops and on microalgae. However, recent
studies indicate that in the future, biomass production, including novel sources such as
specialized bioenergy crops and lignocellulose, is under high degree of uncertainty. Land
erosion, potable water consumption, deleterious effects on environment due to intensified use of
fertilizers and pesticides are amongst the major reasons of concern. Negative net energy
balance, bottlenecks in large scale cultivation and separation of algae from water currently
prevent the implementation of microalgae biomass for the food and biofuels. Recently,
encouraging results show that marine macroalgae can provide an energy profitable alternative
of biomass for sustainable food and biofuels generation.
Our goal is to develop simple, low cost technologie for rapid penetration of biorefineries in low-
income countries, where the largest demand is expected. We focus on the main challenges in
production and utilization of macroalgal biomass such as algae metabolism, ecology and
environmental interactions; energy efficient processing and fermentation technologies for
conversion of macroalgal biomass into foods, chemicals and biofuels.
