Microalgae are plant-like organisms whose production method can be seen in between aquaculture and agriculture: they are cultivated, as common vegetables, but they grow in water ponds rather than in soil. The microalgae grow through photosynthesis thanks to solar radiation, nutrients present in water and the fluid’s movement. Microalgae have an emerging and largely unexplored potential for environment recovery and livestock care.
However, their use is devoted to the improvement of people’s health, life, diet and longevity.
Sustainable Cultivation
Sustainable Cultivation. Microalgae cultivation features several environmentally sustainable elements. Microalgae are a sustainable protein source as they do not consume water to grow (although water is the perfect environment for their movement, they do not feed on it). They have a low land footprint, allowing to keep farmland for more important uses. Since they are biological organisms, they use CO2 (1,7/2,0 kg of CO2 consumed per 1 kg of microalgae product) producing oxigen (considering that 150 kg of produced microalgae yield an amount of oxygen equivalent to what 4 hectares of forest yield).
Synergy with renewable energies. There are several opportunities regarding the synergy between microalgae cultivation and renewable energy:
- microalgae consume CO2 to grow, allowing the possibility to use and compensate the CO2 emitted by powerplants using plants-derived oil, biomass and biogas;
- remediation of heavy metal polluted soils is made possible using microalgae, yielding biomass with high pollutants concentration usable to feed biogas plant;
- microalgae need heat to grow, allowing a simple use of heat produced by co-generation (powerplants yielding both thermal energy and electric power);
- microalgae can use the digestate (main by-product from power plants using biogas) as nutrients source yielding two positive benefits: in one hand the reduction of digestate by-products in farmlands and open environment; in the other hand a costs reduction on microalgae cultivation, allowing their use in agriculture as organic fertilisers with immune-stimulant properties (thus adding another positive effect on herbal health treatments in agriculture, gaining healthy crops and reducing soil’s nutrients impoverishment on farmland);
- Microalgae are cultivable under photovoltaic greenhouses, as their peculiar microenvironment allow an increase of some nutritionally-important compounds: for instance, phycocyanin (a blue protein with a great anti-inflammatory property, usable as food colourant approved for kids’ diet) and other important antioxidants like polyunsaturated fatty acids (omega 3 e omega 6).
Zero Impact Production
Applications for livestock and humans. Thanks to their nutritional content, microalgae have important positive benefits for human and livestock health. In fact, they can be cultivated through productions synergies and by-products reuse to be used as animal supplement or simply feed. Moreover, thanks to their nutritional characteristics, microalgae have a great potential on livestock diet improvement, allowing a reduction of drugs use and disease burden when they are use as feed supplement.
Regarding human use, the main applications concern personal care, nutrition (food products and supplements) and cosmetics (both as cosmetic products made out of microalgae and as treatments with direct use of fresh microalgae in SPAs and beauty centers).
