ERA-MBT 1st Joint Call – Biorefinery processes for marine biomaterials

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The Marine Biotechnology ERA-NET (ERA-MBT) is an action funded under the EU FP7 program and its vision is to support Europe’s marine biotechnology community to participate in an enterprise-driven network that adds value to marine biological resources in ways that nurture and sustain the lives of European citizens. As a part of the activities to make this vision reality, ERA-MBT plans to launch three transnational calls. The first one is focused on the development of sustainable biorefinery processes ("The development of biorefinery processes for marine biomaterials") and it is already working. The call is an initiative of 14 funding organizations from 11 countries. Partnering between at least 3 different countries resulted in 37 consortia and 194 participants, of which some are also from outside the call partnership.

Six projects have been selected to be funded with a total budget of more than € 8 million. Here, the most relevant information about those projects is summarized (complete factsheets are available in the web page of ERA-MBT):

Mar3Bio (Biorefinery and biotechnological exploitation of marine biomasses)
Total costs: € 3.378.920 / Funding granted: € 2.181.032.
Duration: 3 years (2016-2018).
Scope and objective: The marine biomasses to be used in Mar3Bio are brown algae and crustacean byproducts. The main objective is to advance technology beyond state-of-the-art to increase the yield and quality of the products arising from early process streams and modify selected fractionated biomolecules to high value products.
Consortium: SINTEF Materials and Chemistry (Norway, Coordinator), Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway), University of Trieste (Italy), FMC Biopolymer AS (Norway), MATIS (Iceland) and National Institute of Chemistry (Slovenia).

MARBioFEED - Enhanced biorefining methods for the production of marine biotoxins and microalgae fish feed
Total costs: € 749.949 / Funding granted: € 749.949.
Duration: 3 years (2016-2018).
Scope and objective: The focus of this proposal is to isolate large quantities of biotoxins using enhanced biorefining methods for the preparation of reference materials and to allow for research to be conducted on the effects of biotoxins on other important aquaculture industries. Further work will focus on enhanced production of microalgae as fish feed.
Consortium: Marine Institute (Ireland, Coordinator), Norwegian Veterinary Institute (Norway), Instituto Español de Oceanografía (Spain), National Research Council Canada (Canada) and Neoalgae Microseaweeds products (Spain).

MicroMBT - Discovery and training of microbial biocatalysts for biomass conversion using moving bed technology (MBT)
Total costs: € 1.832.446 / Funding granted: € 1.503.285.
Duration: 3 years (2016-2018).
Scope and objective: A culture collection of >100 genome sequenced marine bacteria from the Arctic region, and the Moving Bed Technology (MBT) will be used as tools to increase the value of marine rest raw materials. The bacterial communities will be specifically trained into microfactories for conversion of low value rest-raw material from the fish industry.
Consortium: UiT-The Arctic University of Norway (Norway, Coordinator), Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and Aquaculture Research (Norway), Instituto de Tecnologia Quimica e Biologica (Portugal) and Umeå University (Sweden).

NEPTUNA - Novel Extraction Processes for mulTiple high-value compoUNds from selected Algal source materials
Total costs: € 894.918 / Funding granted: € 759.976
Duration: 2 years (2016-2018).
Scope and objective: Novel enzyme-based extraction technologies will be applied to algal biomass. Algal extracts produced by enzymatic and traditional approaches will be tested for multiple applications, concentrating on antioxidant and antimicrobial activities with applications in food, cosmetics, animal health (aquaculture) and personal/home care.
Consortium: National University of Ireland Galway (Ireland, Coordinator), University College Cork (Ireland), Ghent University (Belgium), Unilever (UK) and UiT- The Arctic University of Norway (Norway).

SeaRefinary  - The Seaweed Biorefinery – for high value added products
Total costs: € 2.607.074 / Funding granted: € 1.406.156.
Duration: 3 years (2016-2018).
Scope and objective: SeaRefinery will develop eco-friendly chemical and enzymatic processing technologies to extract and purify high value-added components such as antioxidants, antimicrobial components and hydrocolloids from cultivated seaweed species in an integrated biorefinery.
Consortium: Danish Technological Institute (Denmark, Coordinator) MARINOX EHF (Iceland) (CyberColloids) Ltd (Ireland), SIOEN Industries NV (Belgium), Centexbel (Belgium), Hortimare AS (Norway), ViVoX ApS (Denmark), Cork Institute of Technology (Ireland).

ThermoFactories - Thermophilic cell factories for efficient conversion of brown algae biomass to high-value chemicals
Total costs: € 2.485.677 / Funding granted: € 1.981.507.
Duration: 3 years (2016-2018).
Scope and objective: Four metabolically different environmental bacteria, inherently suitable to harsh process conditions, will be engineered for production of a number of industrially important platform and specialty chemicals, including 1,2-propanediol, cadaverine, propanol and lycopene. At the end of the project, use of all major carbohydrate fractions from brown algae through integrated processing will be demonstrated at small pilot scale.
Consortium: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway, Coordinator), SINTEF Materials and Chemistry (Norway), University of Iceland (Iceland), Lund University (Sweden), Technical University of Denmark (Denmark), Matis Ohf (Iceland), Biotrend SA (Portugal), SilicoLife Lda (Portugal).

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