Reusing Effluents from Agriculture to unLock the potential of Microalgae
Reusing Effluents from Agriculture to unLock the potential of Microalgae
The goal of REALM is to increase the circularity and profitability of soilless farming, microalgae production and microalgae-based products.
REALM is developing an approach that reuses the nutrient-rich drainwater from soilless farms to cultivate microalgae at industrial scale. This concept will offer sustainable wastewater treatment technology to farmers, close the nutrient loop, and reduce the production costs of microalgae.
Reaching maximum productivity is another element in REALM to reduce the costs of microalgae cultivation. Therefore, the turbidostatic regime will be employed to reach continuous harvest. Harvesting units will be powered by solar energy and automatically managed by novel sensors. AI-based predictive models and a cloud-based monitoring system will assist production. CO2 will be directly captured from the air.
Optimised biorefinery routes will be developed to get the most out of algae biomass by fractioning it and extracting valuable bioproducts from each fraction. These include novel bio-stimulants and bio-pesticides for agriculture and feeds for aquaculture.
The REALM system will be tested in Southern, Central and Northern Europe, so the concept can be adapted in all European countries.
Funded by the European Union.
Views and opinions expressed are however those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.