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SNAP - Seaweeds for Novel Applications and Products

The future bio economy is reliant on increased utilization of marine resources to meet increasing needs for food, feed, materials andproducts. Seaweed is an underutilized biomass in Europe with a great potential for value creation and industry development. The SNAPproject is innovation-focused and aims to develop novel products by upgrading and modifying five different polysaccharides from selected brown and red algae.

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The main objective is to develop novel products and applications by upgrading and modifying polysaccharides from cultivated brown algae and wild harvested brown and red algae.  This will be achieved through the following sub-goals:

  • Characterization of the selected brown and red algal seaweed biomasses (Laminaria hyperborea, Saccharina latissima, Alaria esculenta and Chondrus crispus)
  • Isolation of high-quality polysaccharides (alginates, cellulose, fucoidans, carrageenans, laminarins) through biorefinery processes
  • In-depth structural characterization of polysaccharides from the different species
  • Chemoenzymatic upgrading and functional characterization of all five groups of polysaccharides
  • Production and characterization of test quantities of selected functionalized oligo- and polysaccharide-based novel "blue" biomaterials
  • Development of novel products targeting multiple industry sectors
  • Market exploitation

Applications for the new products could be:

  • Food and feed supplements
  • Neutraceuticals
  • Prebiotics
  • Cosmetics
  • Biomedical
  • Regenerative medicine
  • 3D-printing
  • Industrial applications like; coatings, composites, hydrogekls, filma and barrieres, nanopapers, textiles and novel applications

A consortium with extensive infrastructure and competence in seaweed and marine polysaccharide research and innovations has been established consisting of:

  • SES  
  • DuPont 
  • Tallinn University  
  • The Royal Institute of technology 
  • The Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  • SINTEF
  • University of Trieste
  • University of Bremen 

The project is financed through the first call of the ERA-BlueBio Co-fund (https://bluebioeconomy.eu/)

Key Factors

Project duration

01/03/2020 - 28/02/2023