Over the last years, algal biotechnology has gained considerable importance. Natural products, isolated from algae biomass, are of high interest as they could have financial significance and serve as important lead compounds for developing new bioactive compounds for specific applications. Cyanobacterial biomass is a rich source of high-added value metabolites with potential biotechnological, food, agrochemical and pharmaceutical applications. Considering the enormous biodiversity of these aquatic microorganisms and currently rather unexplored industrial and market applications, the potential of algae for novel research and application areas is exceptionally high.
Therefore, this study will focus on extending the existing knowledge and development of novel strategies for algae biomass utilization as potential low-cost source of higher-added value and/or natural bioactive constituents. The overall goal of this project concerns the development of novel strategies for cyanobacterial biomass utilization in terms of isolation, identification and functional characterization of natural algal metabolites with potential bioactive properties. During this research work, target algal strains will be selected, methods for the isolation, purification, structure elucidation of target cyanobacterial metabolites will be developed, and methods for optimization of current algal culturing techniques as well as downstream processes will be investigated. Additionally, techno-economic feasibility and life cycle assessment of the developed biorefinery schemes will be investigated.
Conclusively, it is expected that the results of this research work will facilitate the development of innovative cyanobacterial biomass (as cost-effective raw material) bio-refining schemes into higher-added value ingredients with plausible applications in biotechnology, food and pharmaceutical industries.
Project funding:
KTU Business Support Fund
Period of project implementation: 2018-09-17 - 2019-09-16
Project coordinator: Kaunas University of Technology
