What are you doing about ocean pollution?

What are you doing about ocean pollution?

Why 150 Million Tons of Plastic Pollution

Is Much More Than a Drop in the Ocean

 

To many people watching Sky News and their #OceanFree Campaign, you would think that removing plastic from the oceans will be enough to resolve the problem. Sadly, this is not the case.

 

The oceans ability to provide food from fisheries and aquaculture is subject to climate change and the resultant ocean acid and oxygen levels. Rising CO2 is just one issue. Rising temperatures and reduced oxygen levels are issues altering the ocean ecosystems. These have a serious impact on marine life.

 

The effect is both regional and global. They include the displacement of fish stocks that were in abundance not long ago. The life expectancy of shellfish, affected by rising acid levels, who are unable to adapt or migrate, has reached a point where they are no longer available in many regions that previously relied upon them for a living.

 

Even fish stocks who have been able to migrate are subject to accelerated overfishing, loss of habitat and increasing pollution. There are now instances where there is an increase in dead zones in the ocean. These are exacerbated by an increase in toxic algal blooms.

 

I have watched documentaries where individual groups are trying to slow the declining coral reef ecosystems. It seems a futile to attempt to rebuild the damage caused by coral bleaching, causing the total collapse of coastal fishing. Even replacement with fish farming (aquaculture) is likely to be affected by an increase in tropical storms and flooding.

 

What can we do?

 

Even if we stop throwing plastic waste into the ocean today, the gyres in the oceans will continue to accumulate more plastic over the next 20 years. The damage has already been done. We can reduce the stresses, but not eliminate them, by lowering ocean pollution. in 2014 we produced 311 millions tonnes of plastic. This is expected to double by 2030. I fear that COP23 in Bonn was nothing more than a talking shop, kicking the pollution can down the road. The lead has to come from the consumer of fish and single-use plastic.

 

There is small option to consider changing fish catching pressure, or the rotation of fishing regions. We can target or lower demand with taxation on certain species. It does require some dynamic management with discretion. Legislation will not resolve the matter.

 

Further support for aquaculture may help, but that may only resolve the short-term supply side. There is the inevitable risk of political infighting as fish stocks migrate. There may even be fish wars.

 

A far more deadly killer remains. The acid and oxygen levels of the oceans has already done so much damage and there is not much we can do at this point. But can you seriously risk ignoring the problem and hope it will go away?

 

What is your view? Leave a comment below and join the Biomassive Revolution

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Integumen License Ageement

Today, Cellulac announces that it has signed Heads of Terms to enter into a commercial technology agreement with Integumen (LSE: SKIN). In addition, Integumen has conditionally agreed to acquire 9.35% of the issued shares of Cellulac. Gerard Brandon and Camillus...

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Daring to Dream Big

Daring to Dream Big

Daring to Dream Big

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result – Albert Einstein

 

Another 300 million tonnes of plastic every year

Since World War II we have consumed 5 billion tonnes of plastic, much of which has ended up in a landfill or the oceans.

Making ourselves healthier by depleting global fish stocks.

In 2015, a consensus of expert opinion suggested that a recommended minimum daily dose of 500mg the Omega 3 oil requirement for the world population was 1.3 million metric tonnes. The world fish catch is not elastic and we are already at a plateau. Thankfully we are still producing much less than that each year, but demand continues to grow, while fish stocks continue to be depleted.

 

Daring to think big enough to have an effect

 

In 2009 Patrick Walsh was a Professor at the National University of Galway, Ireland, had a vision of reducing the amount of energy in the production of biodegradable plastic. This biodegradable plastic ingredient is lactic acid. Used as a food preservative, curing agent, and flavoring agent. It is also an ingredient in processed foods and is used as a decontaminant during meat processing.

 

When broken down from poly-lactic acid, the lactic acid derived bio-plastic ingredient converts back to CO2 and water.

 

Humble, or destitute beginnings

 

By 2012 this small company, now named Cellulac, was €300,000 in debt but had secured €2.8m of EU grants for a pilot plant, with the conditions for the release of the grant be, that industry and investors had to contribute a further €9m.

 

New management was brought in. Even with the vision and the size of EU grant, finding €9 million for a pilot plant, that was never going to break-even, let alone be profitable, was equally never going to be built.

 

The team, which came from a previously successful company, Alltracel Pharmaceuticals, altered the direction and mission to address the glaring lack of infrastructure needed to commercialize the technology.

 

  • 25% of the solution, the Bacteria, was in place. Bacteria are easier to explain if I use the term Gremlins. Remember the movies from 1984 and 1990? If you spilled water on them, they multiplied. Just like Gremlins, Lactic Acid and Micro-algae multiply in water. They are incidentally, produced in separate tanks.
  • 25% was an industrial scale engineering solution. There was a need to punch the living daylights out of the Gremlin-like bacteria and micro-algae to begin the release of oils and bio-plastic ingredients into a soup-like mixture.
  • 25% was a low-cost recovery method. Enzymes are like the 80’s video game of Pac-Man. They consume the ghosts of the Gremlins shell to release the oils and lactic acid.
  • The last 25% was a requirement for a production facility that would deliver commercial scale production of the bio-plastic ingredient and Omega-3 oils.

 

Pulling the pieces together

 

In July of 2013, Cellulac reached the 50% milestone when it acquired the SoniqueFlo technology from Pursuit Dynamics (PDX).

 

If you know the history of PDX, you are probably thinking, why buy the failed PDX. Right? They had blown through £68 million GBP.

 

Well, for Cellulac, this was the equivalent of being handed the engineering equivalent of Pfizers side-effect for their heart treatment, turned erectile dysfunctional drug, Viagra.

 

SoniqueFlo was designed as an efficient heater that softened up grains before food, ethanol and beer production. The same technology worked 10 times better at smashing up softer cells on the recovery, or end, stage of oil and bio-plastic ingredient production.

 

It was like having millions of mini-Conor McGregors compressed into each SoniqueFlo reactor punching the oils and bio-plastic ingredient out of the Gremlin Bacteria and Micro-algae, preparing them for the final stage.

 

The beauty of this industrial scale solution is that it was already operationally successful in 25 production facilities across the food, bio-fuel and alcohol industries since 2010.

 

Later in 2013, Cellulac reached the 75% milestone when it secured access to the 2nd largest brewery in Ireland. This had the output equal to 100 times the size of the original pilot plant that had been the subject of the EU Grant in 2012. It was the former Diageo, Harp Lager production plant in Dundalk, Ireland. A state-of-the-art facility, fully automated, food and beverage grade facility.

 

The 100% milestone was reached faster than expected in 2015, with the acquisition of Aer-Bio. This was a small Enzyme expression protocol company. They specialized in the recovery of oils from micro-algae and production of Omega-3 using Enzymes (these are Pac-Man-like proteins that consume the outer layers of cells which have oil inside).

 

Cellulac had worked with Aer-Bio on a combination of SoniqueFlo and Enzymes since early 2014 to deliver a solvent-free production process for Omega-3 oils.

 

Proven Commercial Scale Production

 

In 2016, at a UK industry partner site, the conversion from a conventional solvent-based process to a solvent-free process was responsible for an 81% reduction of the downstream recovery cost of Omega-3 oils.

 

The outcome is a commercial scale solvent-free production process with sales of Omega-3 to one of the largest food ingredient companies in the world.

 

By 2017, Cellulac has achieved 3 out of these 4 stages:

 

  • Laboratory
  • Third-party pilot facility in Potsdam, DE. 1 x 1,000 litre vessel
  • Industry Partner commercial scale in Liverpool, UK. 6-Tonne per batch from one 80,000 litre vessel.
  • Cellulac production site, Dundalk, IE. 10 x 100,000 litre vessels and 10 x 400,000 litre vessels.There is a lot more going on and you can expect some major news before the end of this year.

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Integumen License Ageement

Today, Cellulac announces that it has signed Heads of Terms to enter into a commercial technology agreement with Integumen (LSE: SKIN). In addition, Integumen has conditionally agreed to acquire 9.35% of the issued shares of Cellulac. Gerard Brandon and Camillus...

What are you doing about ocean pollution?

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Low Energy Microalgae to Biofuel at Commercial Scale

Low Energy Microalgae to Biofuel at Commercial Scale

Low Energy Biomass to Bio-fuel at Commercial Scale

Food and Fuel for the 21st Century

 

Microalgae have come to the attention of the industrial and academic community over recent years because of their ability to harvest the energy of the sun and provide valuable molecules that offer great potential to provide fuel for the coming century and relieve the need and destructive outcomes that are associated with traditional fossil fuels.

 

Solvent-free wet extraction of fuels and sugars

 

For commercial microalgal biofuels to become a reality, the high production cost of oil extraction must be dealt with. A large contributor to the production cost base is the solvent-based process for cell destruction and oil extraction from the algae, which is both expensive and environmentally damaging.

 

4 year pilot to commercial scale success

 

Cellulac recently concluded a 4-year pilot scale to commercial scale project using the SoniqueFlo Sono-Enzymolysis Cell Disruption process with specific objectives to:

 

  1. Demonstrate the technical feasibility of cell wall breakage of Nannochloropsis and Schizochytrium;
  2. Validate a lower cost for enzyme-solvent free extraction compared to the solvent-based process;
  3. Verify environmental benefits of the enzymatic-solvent free process;
  4. Obtain required regulatory approvals for food-grade algal oil extracted using enzymes; and
  5. Leverage project results to commercialize enzymatically extracted algal oil and achieve sales of lysis technology to producers of algal oils.

SoniqueFlo treatment significantly damaged or destroyed cells.

 

Schizochytrium samples post-treated with enzyme:

  • Confirmed a greater than 10 fold reduction in the enzyme dose required for lysis.
  • 87-94 % of available lipid was separated from hydrolysis reaction using a disk stack centrifuge
  • Shortening of hydrolysis time to just 2 hours was also possible.

The success of this trial indicates strongly that SoniqueFlo technology undoubtedly has a role to play in improving the economics of commercial-scale production using an enzyme-based solvent free wet extraction process of algal oils.

 

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Integumen License Ageement

Today, Cellulac announces that it has signed Heads of Terms to enter into a commercial technology agreement with Integumen (LSE: SKIN). In addition, Integumen has conditionally agreed to acquire 9.35% of the issued shares of Cellulac. Gerard Brandon and Camillus...

What are you doing about ocean pollution?

  To many people watching Sky News and their #OceanFree Campaign, you would think that removing plastic from the oceans will be enough to resolve the problem. Sadly, this is not the case.   The oceans ability to provide food from fisheries and aquaculture is...

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The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result - Albert Einstein   Another 300 million tonnes of plastic every year Since World War II we have consumed 5 billion tonnes of plastic, much of which has ended...

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  The butterfly effect is a concept that small causes can have large effects. Initially, it was used with weather prediction but later the term became a metaphor used in and out of science. Now it can easily be related to a single decision made by a Saudi Oil...

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Cellulac Acquires Aer Sustainable Energy (Aer-Bio)

Cellulac Acquires Aer Sustainable Energy (Aer-Bio)

Cellulac Acquired Aer-Bio

10 fold saving in enzymes, 4 fold increase in algae oils within 2 hours reducing the process costs of Omega-3, animal feed and biofuels

 

Dublin, Ireland, 18th May 2015: Cellulac, the industrial biochemicals company, today announces the acquisition of Aer Sustainable Energy Limited, also known as Aer-Bio, effective 18th May 2015. The acquisition adds to the production capabilities in the bioplastic ingredients and biochemical sectors by adding foods, cosmetics, nutraceutical products and aviation biofuel to the core institutional knowledge of the Cellulac technology platform.

 

Aer-Bio+SoniqueFlo-Chart

 

The combination of the Cellulac SoniqueFlo technology – an environmentally-benign, low cost production of chemicals from bio-based dairy and agriculture feedstocks – and Aer-Bios’ accelerated enzyme-expression protocols, have delivered a revolutionary ‘wet extraction’ process for the extraction of oils, proteins and other value-added products from algae. Using a pilot scale SoniqueFlo rig, with the capability of processing up to 10 tonnes per hour, the results showed a 10 fold reduction in enzyme use and 4 fold increase in lipid/oils extraction from algae over a 2 hour period.

 

Gerard Brandon, CEO of Cellulac, commented;

 

“This is a major breakthrough because of the elimination of biomass drying steps that substantially reduce production costs of oil based products from Algae along with the removal of hazardous solvents for oil recovery. Aer-Bios’ contribution has been invaluable to Cellulac within our SPLASH (biopolymer) and FUEL4ME (biofuel) EU grant supported algae projects as the results show. We have industrial scale capability and are currently only limited by the supply constraints of Algae raw materials to process.”

Dr Alan Hernon Ph.D., CEO of Aer-Bio Limited;

“We are excited to have joined one of Europe’s fastest growing bio-based industry companies and believe that joining the Cellulac group offers our combined technologies greater opportunity to reach a wider global bio-economy audience.”

Background on Aer-Bio

 

AER BIO, Aer Sustainable Energy Limited, trading as Aer-Bio, is an Irish industrial biotechnology company. The company has developed an enzyme-based process delivering a revolutionary ‘wet’ extraction method for manufacturing bio-based oils, proteins and other valuable products from Algae. Products that can be extracted and refined using these methods include functional food products such as Omega-3 oils, personal care ingredients, industrial oils and aviation biofuels. Shareholders include Irelandia Investments, Tedcastle Oil, AIB-Seed Fund and Enterprise Ireland.

 

SoniqueFlo Test Rig – 10 tonnes per hour

 

SoniqueFlo Test Rig

SoniqueFlo Industry Scale Rig – 120 tonnes per hour

 

SoniqueFlo

This SoniqueFlo unit has built in 50% redundancy for continuous processing while one side is being cleaned or maintained.

 

Products Algae End Use Markets
Oils/Lipids
  • Algae oils can be a substitute for vegetable oil feedstocks (e.g. Palm, Soybean)
  • Refined glycerine produced for biodiesel may also be used in the pharmaceutical and consumer product industries (cosmetics, skin, beauty care, Omega-3)
  • Specialty oils and fatty acids for dietary supplements and other consumer care applications
Carbohydrates
  • Substitution of agricultural sourced feedstocks for conversion of carbohydrates (sugars) to bio-ethanol (e.g., corn, wheat, sugar cane and sugar beets)
  • Production of bio-based polyolefin plastics as biodegradable replacement of fossil fuel feedstocks
Proteins
  • There is a high protein content in algae biomass for the animal food market, replacing agricultural-based protein sources (e.g., soybean meal)
Hydrocarbons
  • Production of renewable fuel for substitution of diesel, ethanol and aviation fuels for commercial, industry and aviation sector
Biomass
  • Feedstock source for biomass power generation as a substitute for fossil fuels
  • Conversion of residual biomass following oil extraction to renewable distillates
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Integumen License Ageement

Today, Cellulac announces that it has signed Heads of Terms to enter into a commercial technology agreement with Integumen (LSE: SKIN). In addition, Integumen has conditionally agreed to acquire 9.35% of the issued shares of Cellulac. Gerard Brandon and Camillus...

What are you doing about ocean pollution?

  To many people watching Sky News and their #OceanFree Campaign, you would think that removing plastic from the oceans will be enough to resolve the problem. Sadly, this is not the case.   The oceans ability to provide food from fisheries and aquaculture is...

Daring to Dream Big

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result - Albert Einstein   Another 300 million tonnes of plastic every year Since World War II we have consumed 5 billion tonnes of plastic, much of which has ended...

Have we Reached Peak Biofuel?

Is there really an energy security risk?   Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is calling on Europe to increase the production of biofuels from an energy security perspective because of geopolitical risks. This is a tough ask if such increase in...

Biofuels Perfect Storm

Biofuels Perfect Storm   Since August 2015, ethanol has traded at a premium to gasoline which is unusual by historical standards. This is likely to continue until oil prices rebound into the $45-50 per barrel range. Even with this situation, 2015 ethanol...

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  The abolition of sugar quotas in 2017 will have such a profound effect on EU sugar producers, used to super profits under the EU supported Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), that many smaller producers will be subject to consolidation or have to cease...

Big Oil Can’t Alter Climate Change

  In a recent major MIT Study (Covert, Thomas, Michael Greenstone, and Christopher R. Knittel. 2016. "Will We Ever Stop Using Fossil Fuels?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30(1): 117-38. ) it was shown that approximately 65 percent of global greenhouse gas...

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  The butterfly effect is a concept that small causes can have large effects. Initially, it was used with weather prediction but later the term became a metaphor used in and out of science. Now it can easily be related to a single decision made by a Saudi Oil...