ABSTRACT
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Ocean Rainforest and MacroBiotech - Offshore Production of Brown Algae in the North Atlantic
Ocean Rainforest is a Faroese private company engaged in the production of macro algae cultivated on open ocean installations. The company has designed and tested a specific macro algae cultivation rig (MACR) for off-shore deployment in water depths up to 200 meters. The test site is located offshore in 50-70 meters water depth in a location which is exposed to the extreme environment of the North Atlantic. The paper focuses on research and development conducted within the NORA-funded MacroBiotech project. The purpose of the project is to demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of the MACR concept for cultivating three species of macro algae in the open ocean. The potential of using horizontal textile substrates for cultivation is also discussed. Seeding, cultivation and harvesting methods are developed and tested in MacroBiotech as well as methods to obtain storage stability of large scale biomass before it is shipped to the end user for processing. The paper also touches on how the seasonal variation of bioactive compounds contained in the cultivated biomass and the impact it has on commercial product applications within food and feed, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, fertilizers and energy production.
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