Marine Biopolymers Limited (MBL) is a Scottish SME whose focus is on extracting high value components from brown seaweeds for use in a range of applications such as food and pharmaceuticals, but also in different industrial application areas, where the use of natural polymers is growing fast.

 Working to a sustainable model, MBL extracts its raw materials from naturally occurring stocks, however, the use of any seaweed biomass for the production of value-added products e.g. alginate, carries with it the risk of contaminants and impurities which can be carried through to the end product. Nitrogen-containing, or nitrogenous, compounds include proteins and their breakdown products (peptides and amino acids) and lipopolysaccharides. These types of compounds can elicit unwanted immune responses so their presence must be limited in products intended for the biomedical market.

Challenge

MBL has developed a Zero-Waste biorefinery process to extract high value products from indigenous Scottish seaweeds. Two of MBL’s products are cellulose and alginate, which have a range of uses in pharmaceutical/medical and food applications demanding high levels of purity. In this project, MBL wanted to investigate whether an enzymatic treatment could be included in its process to remove nitrogenous contaminants and enhance the purity of its products.

Solution

With IBioIC funding, MBL partnered with Nik Willoughby and Kelly Stewart in Heriot Watt University’s School of Engineering & Physical Sciences. Dr Stewart tested the use of enzymes on samples from MBL’s process and measured the removal of nitrogenous compounds. Enzymes were not effective in removing nitrogenous compounds, so the project partners, with IBioIC’s support, pivoted the project to trial an additional treatment step in its seaweed pre-treatment process.

There were mixed results from the trialled treatment step, but interestingly there was an increase in acetylation, which could lend bioactive properties, adding further value to MBL’s end products. Ion exchange chromatography was also trialled at IBioIC’s FlexBio facility, which improved the recovery and quality of polysaccharides from a liquid co-product stream generated in the process.

Outcome

As a result of this project, MBL was able to not only gain a deeper understanding of the composition and key contaminants in its seaweed biorefining process, but also to identify a means to tangibly improve the quality of at least one of its products, and in so doing, adding significant potential value to that product (a polysaccharide present in all brown seaweeds).

Since the completion of this project MBL has been awarded further funding from AlgaeUK to further optimise its liquid co-product stream. This funding was secured as a direct result of the findings and data arising from the use of the IBioIC FlexBio facility.