Research to the market

In 2017, a consortium of European companies and research institutions received €4,2 million in grant funding to evaluate and prove the concept of a cascading marine macroalgal biorefinery. Under the project title MACRO CASCADE, the collaborating partners have explored the viability and bioeconomic impact of processing cultivated seaweed to create a diverse range of high-value products. By developing a production platform that covers the whole technological chain for processing sustainable cultivated macroalgae biomass, the MACRO CASCADE team intends to support the global shift to a “zero-waste” society.

As the project enters its final year, MACRO CASCADE has addressed a number of important challenges, barriers, and thresholds encountered in previous and ongoing projects related to refining seaweed biomass. In order to catapult the blue economy into a new phase of development, our team is thrilled to share the results and project summary over the course of the next few months. Each of the nine project objectives will be broken out into a collection of sub-deliverables and briefly summarized.

Ultimately, the MACRO CASCADE team has helped the seaweed industry bring research to the market through innovation of patentable and competitive processes, products and business models.