Canary Islands advances the use of microalgae for food and biodiesel

Monday, March 28, 2011, 23:fifty (GMT + 9)

A group of researchers from the Technological Institute of Canarias (ITC) have been able to make new meals and enrich other individuals, produce biodiesel and treat waste water with some microalgae and its derivatives.

In accordance to the director of the R+D Division at the ITC, Gonzalo Piernavieja, the Canary Islands is a planet leader &quotin the issue, as for the very last 20 a long time, numerous research groups doing work on seaweed at the College of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the National Bank of Algae, as nicely as the institution he represents.

Biotech authorities from the ITC proposed to encourage research, development and innovation of the microalgae existing in the Canaries, and become a commercial and industrial home &quotin the quick to medium expression.&quot

Researchers emphasize that the local weather of the islands is ideal for the improvement of microalgae, as their staple is the sun and carbon dioxide.

Piernavieja explained that they are cultivating microalgae on a modest scale in a greenhouse of one,200 square meters in the services that the ITC has in Pozo Izquierdo, southeast of Gran Canaria.

Participating in the research on cultivation of microalgae ended up the large vitality businesses Repsol, Endesa, Acciona and Iberdrola.

The ITC specialist explained that seaweed generates between 10 and twenty occasions much more oil per surface location than typical vitality crops of any oil plant, and do not compete with fertile soil because they are grown in tanks.

At the moment, the Institute is helping to layout the biggest seaweed farming plant undertaking in Europe, developed in Jerez (Cádiz), which will be operational in two years, studies the EFE news company.

Microalgae are a source of &quotgood&quot fatty acids, specially omega 3 and 6 of carotenoids and some might also serve for the meals industry, for example, the dairy sector.

Several species of microalgae are also higher in protein, which make them beneficial in developing animal feed for aquaculture, amid other folks, and can &quotmake the leap from natural goods to the supermarket.&quot

Piernavieja noted that there are roughly fifty,000 species of seaweed and only 10 are bought commercially.

He also expressed the need for present legislation to adapt to the advances in this field, considering that only four kinds of seaweed are permitted to be consumed.

By Analia Murias
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com