Shrimp and crab shell fibres called chitin nanowhiskers form the base of this new material, which would allow automotive components to meet strict environmental standards without compromising vehicle safety. This material has a much higher strength-to-weight ratio compared to conventional plastics used in most automotive components, and provides higher mechanical strength without aesthetic flaws or deformation at lower densities.

Due to the composite nature of the material, mechanical properties can easily be engineered to suit various strength, stiffness and weight requirements simply by varying the combination of chitin nanowhisker and polymer content. The material is also completely renewable and sustainable as chitin nanowhiskers are derived from the waste of the fishing industry.

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In Hobbs, in the heart of southeast New Mexico’s oil patch, Massachusetts-based Joule Unlimited Inc. broke ground this fall on a five-acre site that will use concentrating-solar biorefineries to extract ethanol and diesel from bacteria in salt-water mixed with carbon dioxide.

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Maersk, based in Denmark, has worked with the Navy for about 30 years. However, the biofuels testing program is the first partnership between the world’s largest commercial container carrier and the Navy’s Naval Sea Systems Command.

Both the Navy and the Maersk Line, which is part of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, are on a mission to reduce the environmental impacts of their operations at sea and on land.

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Marine Arctic & Antarctic Technologies Inc. is one of 10 startups that made the shortlist of the Nova Scotia Clean Tech Open, Innovacorp announced Wednesday.

The competition’s goal is to assist a clean technology company in getting established in the province.

Marine Arctic & Antarctic Technologies is developing technology to mass produce micro-algae for use in biofuel and other products.

“It’s like slop,” CEO Mather Carscallen said of the raw material during an interview.

“Some of it smells bad. Some of it doesn’t. It’s pretty much every different smell, shape, colour you could ever imagine.”

The algae would be incubated in a bioreactor that could vary in size and designed to be cost effective, he said.

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Gurry Investments, a Boston-based investment firm established in 2000, is using its technology to produce organic fertilizer using waste from farmed fish. The company, working with fertilizer producer Multi Bloom and Mega Green, which is owned by Consolidated Catfish of Isola, Miss., uses a hydrolysis process. The skin and bones are removed from filleted fish, leaving the protein. The offal is ground into a slurry form, processed and separated in a three-stage centrifuge. The result is a product with 10 percent high quality fish oil and 4 percent sediment, which is used as ground cover, hydrolysate or organic fertilizer.

According to Carl Reetz, president of Gurry Investments, using fish waste for organic fertilizer instead of fishmeal or fish oil can benefit both processors and the seafood industry as a whole.

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Both current methods of producing bioethanol, reducing carbon dioxide or the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose or lignocellulose, are onerous. In this context, the acetate-to-ethanol reduction has shown to be a promising source of economically viable bioethanol. Many works consider that obtaining ethanol from acetate would be excessively onerous due to the cost of separating acetate present in wastewaters.

There is, however, an abundant natural source of acetate that has been neglected in this discussion: chitin. Acetate is abundantly present in chitin, the second most abundant natural polymer in nature (by cellulose only). The obtention of acetate from chitin can take place in a simple way, through the alkaline or acidic hydrolysis of this polymer.

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When producing omega-3 concentrates, all omega-3-fatty acids are preserved. In fish oil there is also a rather large amount of saturated fat which from a nutritional point of view, is not interesting for further production. Using distillation, these saturated fats are being separated from the process. The waste of fatty acids can be used as biodiesel and replace today’s fuel oil. The Norwegian Climate and Pollution Agency has approved our replacement of fuel oil with self-produced biodiesel.

Biodiesel from fish oils is a renewable resource, and even though the emission of  CO2 will be the same, it will be CO2 neutral in the cycle considering the accounting/final statement of greenhouse gasses.

GC Rieber Oils is expecting a reduction of fuel oil of approximately 25% in 2011. Our target is  a 100% replacement of fuel oil.

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Heavy machinery maker IHI Corp. plans to establish a research and development company for algae biofuel in early August in conjunction with a university venture, eyeing commercial production in fiscal 2020.

Algae biofuel has been drawing attention because unlike fuels made from agricultural crops such as sugarcane and corn, it doesn’t lead to an increase in food prices, IHI said.

IHI will invest ¥400 million over two years in the joint company IHI NeoG Algae, expecting it to release sample products that may be used as an alternative to jet fuel in three years, it said.

It currently costs about ¥1,000 to produce 1 liter of oil from algae, but the joint company aims to reduce that to ¥100.

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A2 Omega-3™ is a family of Omega-3 oils aimed at the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical markets with the goal of providing a natural, sustainable and cost-effective alternative to fish oil and fermented products. The first offering in this family, A2 EPA Pure™ will make the benefits of EPA available to a broader market since it is derived from an allergen-free, vegetarian source.

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The proposal would eliminate funding for the federal agricultural research station in Alaska, and calls for a cut of $42 million to the Agriculture Research Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

If the cuts go through, it would result in a loss of almost $1 million dollars to the FITC — a bad proposition for the seafood waste research.

“The research that it funds stops,” FITC interim director Paula Cullenberg said. “It’s the primary source of funding for seafood byproduct research in the state and one of the few in the country. I think it would be a bad thing for Alaska.”

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