Missoulian Company Digging the Possibilities of Algae to High Value Products
Missoula-based company, called Blue Marble Biomaterials is exploring the ways of highly valuable products food colorings, flavors and nutritional oils derived from sustainable sources coffee grounds, beer mash and algae. The company’s co-founder James Stephans is very much excited about the recent research on the metabolic processes by which algae produce energy.
Blue Marble is trying to eliminate the problems associated with the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers during algae cultivation. A geosciences professor by name Carry Blank, who specializes in evolutionary biology, is involved in this study. During the course of the study, Blank found out that some ancient forms of algae feed on nitrogen sources that are very different from the normal.
Blue Marble and Blank are in the process of confirming an international patent on the discovery. The company is already working up methods of using Blank’s discovery to produce algae in large enough quantities for a commercially viable operation. They’ve moved from test tubes to 2,000-liter bioreactors, with light source that can be tuned to mimic virtually any kind of sunlight characteristic on Earth. This makes them possible to grow algae from any habitat in their laboratory.
The algae pigments produced can be modified into any food color that has no genetic modification or petrochemical basis. According to Blank, they have 26 strains now and they are further developing new ones.
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