From marine biomass to soil nutrients – The business model

The project originates by the need of improving the safety and sustainability of agriculture and aquaculture practices as to provide a technical solution to:

• the unbalanced mix of different nutrients in agricultural and aquaculture practices

• the scarcity of some essential nutrients such as phosphorous

• the willingness of different stakeholders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions generated during agricultural and aquaculture practices, such as waste water and flue gases.

By making use of marine water and nutrients from wastewaters rich in Calcium, Nitrogen and Phosphorus coming from sewage and pig manure, the project SABANA has developed a large-scale integrated microalgae-based biorefinery in the proximity of the University of Almeria (Spain) for the production of bio stimulants, biopesticides and feed additives, in addition to biofertilizers and aquafeed.

The project has opened its first DEMO plant that can produce 1 hectare of microalgae from agricultural and aquaculture waste.

The process can be summarized as follows:

1. Collection of pig manure and sewage collection

2. Production of Microalgae

3. Harvesting and processing of microalgae

4. Biorefinery of the microalgae crops

5. Creation of aquafeed additives & Bio stimulants/biopesticides (high value) and aquafeed and biofertilizers (low value).