Grant: Engage Plus Grants for Colleges

The Jungbunzlauer (JBL) citric acid production plant in Port Colborne (ON) generates about 13 000 m3 perday of wastewaters. As the purification process yield is around 95%, these effluents contain around 4 tons ofresidual citric acid and 13 tons of residual sugars on a daily basis. These losses represent more than $1.5million per year. A way to beneficially use the residual citric acid and sugars is to cultivate microalgae that canuse these carbon sources and convert them into a valuable product such as rich oil algae biomass. Such biomassis coveted in some sectors such as the aquafeed market. Because Jungbunzlauer is specialized in fermentationprocesses and food ingredients, microalgae biomass for the fish feed market sounds to be an appropriatesolution. Knowing Innofibre has developed an expertise in microalgae biomass processing in the last 5 years,JBL mandated it to assess the feasibility to produce microalgae biomass in their wastewater. Two strains havebeen studied in the project «Microalgae biomass production in a citrate rich wastewater for aquafeedapplication» financed by the Engage grant.Before moving on with a mid-term project JBL wants to get more information about the potential strain to use.The two strains previously studied have shown to be able to growth in JBL wastewater. An interestingeconomic potential for the company has been identified with one of them (VERTECH consortium) but there isstill work to stabilize the cultivation in the wastewater to be able to select the best strain. Additionally, JBLwould like to learn more about the regulation and the market before making a choice