SEA2LAND – Producing advanced bio-based fertilisers from fisheries wastes (H2020)  

General concept

The SEA2LAND project brings together 26 multidisciplinary actors from 10 different European countries (9 companies, 2 social actors, 9 technological centres and 5 universities), to implement 9 processes for the recovery of nutrients from the by-products and side-streams of the aquaculture and fishing industry. SEA2LAND will optimise near-to-market (TRL7) technologies some of them combined (advanced compost, biodrying, frozen concentration, algae production, pyrolysis, membrane technology, chitin extraction, frozen extraction, thermo-mechanical fractionation, enzymatic hydrolysis) that will generate at least 12 bio-based or tailor-made fertilisers. SEA2LAND aims to develop solutions that connect the problem of the wasted nutrients from fisheries with the need of nutrients for agricultural purposes. Thus, by-products waste producers and managers will identify and quantify the waste flows while agricultural research institutions will assess the soil needs. Technological centres will provide solutions for the transformation of wastes into bio-based fertilisers, while fertiliser companies will produce and tests the fertilisers and will give the point of view of business and market. Besides, advisory services and associations of farmers will interact to optimize the final product. Their contribution, in the final formulations, will affect to the production process design. 

The role of UNIVPM in SEA2LAND

UNIVPM creates a “shell biorefinery” concept using the leftovers from a seafood processing industry (CO.PE.MO) in Ancona (Marche, Italy). CO.PE.MO produces 1-3 tons/day seafood wastes and by-products. Process leftovers are mainly composed of mussel shells and little contribution of organic fraction of the seafood (i.e. remaining mussels’ meat, seaweed as well as other crustacean shell wastes). This type of waste contains three primary chemicals that have many industrial uses: calcium carbonate, chitin and protein. Accordingly, raw seafood processing wastes will be separated between shells and remaining organic fraction. Two different innovative routes will be followed to recover valuable materials. In the first route, chitin and protein hydrolysates will be recovered from seafood processing wastes at the lab-scale by UNIVPM to obtain chitin-protein derivative as a slow-release N-fertiliser. In the second route, biochar-compost composite fertiliser will be achieved at pilot-scale using several batches of real seafood processing wastes by UNIVPM. Biochar will be obtained by the pyrolysis of shells and/or co-pyrolysis with other relevant wastes. Organic fraction of the wastes will be latter composted and/or co-composted using other aquaculture and/or forestry wastes such as macroalgae and softwood. Processes optimization will be carried out in each step and characterization of resulting products will be assessed for each recipe to obtain ready-to-use high-quality biofertilisers. 

Expected impacts

The long-term impact of SEA2LAND is the supply of biological and renewable nutrients to European agriculture through the recovery of nutrients present in by-products from the fisheries and aquaculture industries. Around 50 MT of by-products are generated and only a part is used to produce fish meal. It is expected to implement and optimize 9 technological solutions that could lead to the recovery of about 5.2 million tons wastes that means 620,000 ton of nutrients (N and P) for agricultural use, which means more than 20% of the nutrients imported into Europe (3 million tons annually). That means that around 6.8 million ha that could benefit from the use of those fertilisers. In this way SEA2LAND will contribute to reduce European dependence of external inputs of nutrients, and at the same time, will contribute to reduce GHG emissions and to boost local economy.