Summary
- Profile Type
- Technology offer
- POD Reference
- TODE20240911010
- Term of Validity
- 11 September 2024 - 11 September 2025
- Company's Country
- Germany
- Type of partnership
- Investment agreement
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
- Targeted Countries
- All countries
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General information
- Short Summary
- A German institute has developed a novel feed for aquaculture animals to improve aquaculture waste management and water quality. By manipulating the feed with cork granules, feed pellets are created that do not dissolve in the water, defragment less and are easier to remove. The Institute is looking for business partners, licensee and/or investors to bring the innovative product to market.
- Full Description
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The increasing demand for fish and seafood and limited access to water and land suitable for production make further modernization and improvement of aquaculture technologies urgently necessary. Over the past decades, recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) have shown promise in the search for more sustainable methods. However, despite continuous development and remarkable improvements in system design, this intensive method of fish farming faces several challenges and is still far from meeting the market demand for farmed fish, even in industrialized countries.
Traditional aquaculture technology requires large quantities of water, which means that production capacities in many geographical areas are limited by the water supply. Therefore, so-called recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) have been developed, which have a lower water consumption compared to traditional culture systems. However, to maintain good water quality, advanced purification systems with high technical standards must be used to clean the wastewater before it is reintroduced into the system. Both traditional aquaculture technology (flow-through systems) and RAS therefore require easy-to-use and cost-effective purification equipment to treat the wastewater.
Water quality determines not only how well the fish grow in an aquaculture facility, but also whether they survive and the environmental impact of aquaculture effluents. The main pollutants that can be produced in aquaculture are Chemicals and drugs used to keep fish clean and disease control, as well as metabolic products such as feces, urine, ammonia, C02 and uneaten feed.
Scientists at a German institute have developed a novel feed for aquaculture animals to improve aquaculture waste disposal and water quality. By adding cork granules to fish feed, a new type of feed pellet has been created that resists decomposition in water, is less defragmented and consequently leaches out, facilitating the collection of solid particles and reducing the dissolved solids content. A commercial control feed was compared with an experimental feed in which the addition of 2.5 % cork granules led to the production of floating excrement.
Physiological examinations revealed no pathological tissue changes associated with the experimental feed, and growth, survival and feed conversion were not affected. The average removal in one pass through a specially designed surface separator yielded 78.3% of the floating solids, which accounted for 35.4% of the total solids in the system. The total concentration of ammonia-nitrogen in the production water was approximately halved, from about 0.95 mg l-1 in the control group to 0.47 mg l-1 using the cork diet, an improvement that in practice allows a doubling of production with the same available water flow. This study demonstrates that the use of floating manure enables rapid and cost-effective removal of suspended solids, resulting in a significant reduction of nutrient loading in the system and in the effluent water of the farm studied.
By controlling the size, specific gravity and stability of the feces through the addition of cork and optimizing the feed to reduce dissolved metabolic compounds in conjunction with screen removal (for solids) and a biofilter (for dissolved contents), exceptional results were achieved, demonstrating very high removal efficiency with screen/filtration techniques and humorously referred to as “Mfloating Feces".
The optimized removal of faeces from the surface stream improves water quality, the efficiency of the filtration systems, supports fish growth and fish welfare. The use of cork feed also reduces the nutrient load of the system water and thus potential emissions, without the cork supplement having any effect on feed conversion or fish health. Since cork is a natural biological material, the sludge can be directly upgraded for use as a fertilizer. - Advantages and Innovations
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Advantages of the innovation are:
• No reduction in growth or feed intake
• Virtually no effect on the feed conversion ratio
• No effect on health, no histological abnormalities in the intestine or liver or eaten feces in the stomach
• Larger faeces and lower faecal density (below 1.00 g/cm3) improve the filtration performance of the sieve
• Significant improvement in water quality by reducing ammonia and nitrite levels
• Significant reduction in wastewater treatment costs
• Improved living conditions for fish in aquaculture - Stage of Development
- Available for demonstration
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
- Goal 14: Life Below Water
- Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
- Goal 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal
- IPR status
- IPR granted
Partner Sought
- Expected Role of a Partner
- The Institute is looking for manufacturing and distribution partners, licensees and/or investors to produce and bring the new technology to market. The manufacturing and distribution partners, licensees and/or investors should have knowledge of the production of fish food and have access to the necessary production and distribution structures.
- Type and Size of Partner
- SME 50 - 249
- SME 11-49
- Other
- Big company
- Type of partnership
- Investment agreement
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
Dissemination
- Technology keywords
- 07003004 - Micro- and Nanotechnology related to marine resources
- 07003002 - Fish / Fisheries / Fishing Technology
- 07003001 - Aquaculture
- Market keywords
- 08004003 - Water treatment equipment and waste disposal systems
- 09005 - Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, Animal Husbandry & Related Products
- Targeted countries
- All countries