Our main expertise is the development of the industrial production technology of freshwater algae. The importance of algae production is expected to grow in the near future. There is continuous research on the use of algae as feedstuffs and feed additives, for soil amelioration and energetic purposes. We plan to establish a new plant-biotechnological industrial branch in Hungary.
Research and development objectives
- Isolation and culturing of freshwater microalgae, extraction of natural oil content
- Collection of freshwater algal coatings and zooplankton, determination of oil content
- Investigation of the oil producing capacity of saltwater microalgae, optimisation of culturing conditions for maximal oil-biosynthesis
- Inducing mutations to obtain „oil-like” algal strains
- Concentration of oil fractions via HPLC, thin-layer and gas-chromatographic analyses of fractions
- Studies on the specific effects of lipid fractions
- Large-scale algal biomass production in photobioreactors at semi-industrial scale: technology development.
Development
Our first major development was the establishment and installation of a large-volume photobioreactor (Albitech, Foton). Pilot studies are in progress.
