Commercial exploitation of marine collagen and chitin from marine sources (BlueCC)
Description: Up to 138 million tons of living organisms, so called biomass, is wasted every year in the EU, of which up to 40% goes to landfill. This includes large amounts of by-catches from the fisheries, which indeed could be used in better ways. Other sources of poorly utilized marine biomass are the so called "cleaner fish" used in aquaculture e.g. to keep salmon free of parasites such as salmon louse. Additional sources are the many invasive marine species which are currently causing devastation to local ecosystems, including different kinds of crabs and jelly fish. These poorly used biomasses represent not only problems, but also opportunities for innovative actions in the EU to better develop targeted uses of what is currently wasted or disturbing our ecosystems. The BlueCC project aims to investigate two such opportunities, and those are to sustainably exploit two large molecules (so called polymers) i.e. chitin and collagen, from invasive crabs as well as from jellyfish, starfish and cleaner fish, respectively. Model products containing these polymers and/or smaller fragments of them are then to be developed. Chitin is an insoluble polymer found e.g. in crustacean shells, which together with its water-soluble form chitosan have multiple applications for example in the biomedical, food and agricultural industries. In the former, chitin/chitosan is used e.g. in tissue engineering as a scaffold for growing tissue, in wound healing and in anti-aging products. In the food area, it can help to mix water and oil (so called "emulsifying" properties), and it can also provide thickening, antimicrobial and antioxidative properties. It can also be used in and low calory food as it can aid fat excretion. Within agriculture, it can provide e.g. plant defense and yield increase. Collagen, which is a major structural component in human skin, bone and cartilage, is like chitin/chitosan of great interest as a scaffold in tissue engineering. However, it has also gained significant interest in the health and beauty segment since supplementing collagen can revitalize skin and joints, and it may also improve glucose metabolism, the latter being important in diabetes. The anti-inflammatory properties of collagen may play a role in many of the mentioned properties. Collagen from marine sources can be a healthy, environmentally sound alternative to collagen from bovine and pork sources as some concerns have been raised around the risk of disease transmission from ruminant-derived collagen. In addition, some consumers prefer marine over meat derived products. Thus, altogether, Chitin/chitosan and collagen have numerous interesting uses, and can therefore be applied in many areas.In order to succeed with this ambition, the BlueCC project will put strong emphasis on understanding what the market needs and wants, and also it is driven by a team with many different competences. To make sure all aspects are properly covered, the project is divided into four main parts, addressing: (i) market driven development of collagen/chitin product concepts, (ii) isolation of collagen/collagen peptides and chitin/chitosan, using "green methods", thus, for instance without organic solvents, (iii) characterization of the novel marine ingredients, for example analyzing their purity and testing if they have anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effects using biological models (iv) commercialization potential of new products with these polymers, while all the time keeping sustainability and ethical aspects in mind. It is also important to stress that in order to allow for holistic use of the targeted marine raw materials, the team will explore possible health-promoting effects also of by-products emerging in the isolations of chitin/chitosan and collagen. This could allow for completely new marine molecules to be discovered, with interesting uses e.g. for human health. Altogether, the BlueCC project will thus in a sustainable and efficient manner examine if underutilized marine
Funder: Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas
Amount: SEK 3,224,000
Funding type: research
Funder scheme: Project grant
Start date: 2020-01-01
End date: 2022-12-31
Investigator: Ingrid Undeland
Institution: Chalmers University of Technology
Funded outputs count: 2
Funder award ID: 2019-02362
OpenAlex ID: G974088198