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FFL-JA-Forskningsmidlene for jordbruk og matindustri

Multifunctional high-value fungal biomass from the Norwegian agriculture supply chain by-products

Alternative title: Multifunksjonell høyverdig biomasse produsert av muggsopp fra biprodukter fra det norske landbrukets forsyningskjede

Awarded: NOK 8.0 mill.

Norway produces around 600 000 tons of agriculture and food supply chain by-products annually. Today, the large share of these by-products is used for low-value applications, combustion or disposed as waste. There is a huge societal and industrial need for developing processes for valorizing available agriculture by-products in a sustainable way for producing high-value product(s). BYPROVALUE utilizes the versatile metabolism of oleaginous fungi and develop a completely new and unique value chain for valorizing Norwegian agricultural supply chain by-products - animal fat and protein by-products, rest materials from brewery and sugar-rich lignocellulose side-streams of forestry into a product with several functionalities: a multifunctional fungal biomass. Multifunctional fungal biomass could be utilised as a whole in animal feed and pet food or fractionated down to high-value ingredients - lipids and pigments for feed and food, chitin/chitosan for water treatment applications and beta-glucans for medical applications. In the first stage of the project we started to evaluate different rest materials as a growth substrate for the oleaginous red yeasts. The following rest materials are involved in the evaluation screening - lignocellulose hydrolysates, waste glycerol and urea, animal fat rest materials, spent grain and waste yeasts from brewery. It has been shown that combining lignocellulose hydrolysates and waste urea derived from the fish oil production provide high biomass and lipid production.

EU generates around 26 million tonnes of by-products across the agriculture and food supply chain annually with estimated associated costs of 43 billion euros for waste disposal. Only Norway produces around 600 000 tons of agriculture and food supply chain by-products annually. Today, the lions share of these by-products is used for low-value applications, combustion or disposed as waste. There is a huge societal and industrial need for developing processes for valorizing available agriculture by-products in a sustainable way for producing high-value product(s). BYPROVALUE will utilize the versatile metabolism of oleaginous fungi and develop a completely new and unique value chain for valorizing Norwegian agricultural supply chain by-products - animal fat and protein by-products, rest materials from brewery and sugar-rich lignocellulose side-streams of forestry into a product with several functionalities: a multifunctional fungal biomass. Multifunctional fungal biomass could be utilised as a whole in animal feed and pet food, or fractionated down to high-value ingredients - lipids and pigments for feed and food, chitin/chitosan for water treatment applications and beta-glucans for medical applications. BYPROVALUE will address the above challenges by an international and multidisciplinary consortium with top expertise in fungal biotechnology, fungal fermentation and advanced analysis of fungal metabolites as well as expertise in techno-economical evaluation of novel processes and bio-products. The project partners are the research partners Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), NOFIMA, Slovak University of Technology (STU), Brno University of Technology (BUT), University of Munster (WWU) and Norwegian companies Norilia AS, Nortura SA, Felleskjøpet Agri SA, Biotec Betaglucans AS, Teta vannrensing AS, Ringnes AS and Borregaard AS.

Publications from Cristin

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FFL-JA-Forskningsmidlene for jordbruk og matindustri