Seaweed Biorefinery

The seaweed biorefinery project aims to convert native seaweeds to chemicals, biofuels and energy.  As seaweed in our vision is grown off-shore, it does not compete with the food supply or other land use issues.  Since about three quarters of the earth is covered by water, the potential is large.

Seaweed offers numerous possibilities for production of renewable chemicals and energy carriers for a future “bio-based economy”.  It is highly suited as a raw material for co-production of chemicals, biofuels and energy via the biorefinery approach. In this project suitable and efficient biorefinery strategies and concepts are developed for seaweed biomass.

This project focuses on the biorefinery of the seaweeds.  The cultivation and harvesting of seaweeds on the North-Sea is the subject of parallel projects.  We gratefully acknowledge the financial support for the project under the EOS program (EOS LT 08027).