Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2025
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster V28
Höfundar / Authors: Sean Michael Scully
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: University of Akureyri
Kynnir / Presenter: Sean Michael Scully
The potential of seaweed as a sustainable resource for bioenergy and biobased resources is a topic of intense interest despite many barriers. While there has been progress in the context of cascading biorefineries for the sequential extraction of high-value compounds, the utilization of seaweeds and residues remains a challenge. Furthermore, finding a flexible approach to dealing with highly variable materials such as beach cast seaweeds presents a potential problem for areas inundated with algal blooms in quickly warming regions. While a number of microbial approaches for seaweed bioenergy production exist, obtaining high yields at reasonable costs remains challenging. This work aims to present the recent status of the “upgrading” of cold anaerobic digestion of seaweed residues by mixed culture to shift the focus away from biogas towards “intermediate” products such as carboxylic acids. Inoculum sources from sheep grazing on seaweed from the West Fjords and rotting seaweed enrichments, digestates “sweet” with carboxylic acids have been produced and subsequently “upgraded” to alcohols through coupling with bioethanol fermentations using mannitol in good yield (>60% conversion and ethanol titers over 35 mmol/L). Future possibilities for valorization of seaweeds for bioenergy applications and current challenges will also be discussed.