Green and sustainable approach to valorise high saline and oily fish processing effluents for production of nutraceuticals (INVENTION)

Fish processing industry wastewaters has been one of the problems having a very significant impact on the environment and in particular have become an issue of public concern.

The discharge of such wastewater containing at the same time high salinity and high organic content (fat, oil and grease), without prior treatment is known to adversely affect aquatic life, water potability and agriculture.

High saline and oily wastewater is hard to treat by the conventional physiochemical and biological methods that needs to develop an effective and environmentally friendly treatment technology and to create an economically more efficient utilization of organic wastes.

The project “INVENTION”Is aiming for the development of a sustainable technology to value high saline and oily fish processing effluents for the production of nutraceuticals such as omega-3 fatty acids and squalene.

Such an approach is well within long-term goals of upgrading fish processing effluents to high-added value compounds, especially with applications in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical sector.

In this proposal, oleaginous marine thraustochytrids, a group of eukaryotic protists, will be used to treat high saline and oily wastewater due to their tremendous ability to tolerate wide range of salinity and to utilize hydrophobic substrates.

Finally, the residual protein and carbohydrate rich deoiled biomass from the microbial cultivations will be utilized for the Fish feed to achieve a zero waste scenario.