The Covid-19 pandemic situation in France affected the operation of the algal production pilot. Access to the pilot was restricted from the middle of March and the research team could only work analysing previously obtained data, without access to the laboratory and cultivation facilities.
As a result, the data review has shown the importance to add certain elements to the media such as micronutrients and metals.
The main goal of this cultivation process is to remediate the anaerobic digestion waste stream in the form of liquid digestate from Cooperl AD plant and the algal biomass production.The productivity of this species of algae is very high. Each run could produce around 4kg of biomass. This algal biomass will be used in animal feed trials planned later this year. The newly developed feed including the algal biomass will be tested on piglets.
Philippe Soudant from CNRS said: “The main objective is to get the system up and running again, and to produce enough biomass for the animal feed trials. We will also be collecting data for modelling, and writing up our work for scientific papers.”
