Sustainable use of marine resources for high value end products

In order not to jeopardize the availability of the sea's renewable, but limited, resources, it is of the utmost importance that these are utilized in an efficient and sustainable manner. Waste from harvested marine biomass is today either dumped directly into the sea, destroyed or goes to low-value products such as feed or biogas. The project aims to increase the societal benefits of marine resources by utilizing as much of the biomass as possible and converting residual streams into high value products. The key to being able to utilize and refine these unused residual streams is the biorefinery.

As a case study, the processing potential of shrimp shells is investigated with a focus on the extraction of high-quality chitin, at the same time as the possibility of utilizing other process streams is investigated. An efficient biorefinery process will be evaluated, which in the long run can be extended to other marine biomass and other residual streams. From the extracted chitin mass, chitin fibers will be produced with subsequent production of textiles adapted for wound care products. The potential for other products will also be investigated. Actors from the business and public sector will be linked in new value chains and the refining process will be analyzed in terms of sustainability, scalabilty and techno-economy. The vision is that marine residual streams in 5-10 years will not be seen as waste but as a valuable raw material.