Dr. Deepika Dave - June 16

Bioprocessing Strategy and Biorefinery Approach for Sustainability


It is estimated that about 294,601 metric tonnes of fish and shellfish was produced from the Newfoundland and Labrador’s fishing and aquaculture industries of which 40% is contributed as fish processing waste in year 2012. Currently, NL has limited capacity to handle this waste in terms of composting, mink feed, rendering and landfilling. The fish and shell fish processing by-products can be used as a great source to generate various value added products such as proteins, amino acids, oil, omega-3 fatty acids, biodiesel, chitin, chitosan, astaxanthin and enzymes. These value added products have numerous applications in the fields of water and wastewater engineering, cosmetics, bioenergy, paper engineering, textile engineering, food engineering, agriculture, photography, chromatographic separations, medical, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical in the recent decades. Thus, it is important to develop biorefinery strategy for byproduct applications that demand large volumes of fish and shellfish waste, in order to make seafood processing and aquaculture industries sustainable and more environmentally friendly. Marine bioprocessing facility of Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development (CASD) at Marine Institute is diligently involved in implementation of bioprocessing strategy and biorefinery approach for various industrial scale research including: pilot scale production of chitin (shrimp and crab), oil, protein, silage and biodiesel and intermediate scale production of chitosan, omega-3 fatty acids and astaxanthin. The extraction of these value added products from fish and shellfish processing waste have significant impact on the economics of seafood and aquaculture industry in the province in addition to mitigating the environmental problems associated with the disposal of these wastes.