Value-added products

A bio-based economy

Global climate change and environmental issues provide an impetus for a transition to a bio-based economy with a low carbon footprint. Microalgae have been considered as promising feedstocks for applications in food and feed production, bioactive pharmaceuticals, and biofuels, as they possess several unique properties.

Microalgae as primary producers are a major part of phytoplankton community, found in almost all marine and fresh water ecosystems. They are photosynthetic eukaryotes capable of fixing CO2 into biomass with a higher efficiency of photosynthesis than vascular plants. They are also highly diverse; for example, diatoms are evolutionarily different from green algae.

Many species of microalgae are easy to cultivate with inexpensive media and they don’t compete directly with agricultural crops for water or land. There are also genetic modification tools available that make it possible to engineer microalgae for the efficient production of desired products. In addition, microalgae are a rich source of natural value-added products, such as carotenoids and unsaturated fatty acids. There is a high demand for naturally synthesized carotenoids such as β-carotene and lutein in global markets. However, the productivity of carotenoids in microalgae has historically been low, and the economic viability of algal biotechnology is limited by processing costs and photosynthetic efficiency, as well as by productivity in algal cultures.

Here at Perpetual Biotechnologies we support the potential of such products and we have incorporated them into our business model.