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• Bio-fuels
• 10 Questions on the NSLGC
• Dolphin SMART
• NOAA Team Focuses on Ways to Better Serve Customers
• Aquaculture Workshop
• Sea Briefs Editor Leaves Post
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• Tim Mulvaney Comes Aboard
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Sea Briefs is a report on the results of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Editor: Laura Bowie

This newsletter is available in PDF format from:
masgc.org/seabriefs

MASGC supports applied, interdisciplinary marine science research, education and outreach efforts to foster the sustainable development and management of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and nearshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico

Mississippi-Alabama
Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Phone: 228-818-8840
E-mail: seabriefs@masgc.org
MASGP 08-011-03

Bio-fuels

Fuel made from seafood waste

Scientists at Mississippi State University are working to turn shrimp processing waste into a diesel-like fuel. Shrimp parts that are not consumed could someday help fill tanks on fishing boats, vehicles, and anything else that runs on diesel fuel. The project is being funded by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Todd French is an assistant professor of chemical engineering at MSU and the project lead for the shrimp waste biofuel project. Also collaborating on the seafood to fuel project are Rafael Hernandez and Guochang Zhang, both of whom are in the chemical engineering department at MSU. According to French, the goal of this research project is to find a higher value for the millions of tons of shrimp waste that gets processed in the Gulf Coast region each year. Scientists already know that seafood waste contains the materials necessary to produce oil: the main ingredient being chitin (a carbohydrate found in shrimp, crab and lobster shells). Researchers will take the seafood processing waste, pre-treat it and add it to vats of bacteria, yeast and fungi – a mixture French refers to as “our bugs.” The microorganisms eat the chitin, convert it into fat and store it. The fat can be harvested in the form of oil.

“The oil our microorganisms are making is similar to canola oil or corn oil,” French said.

The process was first tested with synthetic seafood ingredients at MSU with promising results. Consequently, the researchers arranged to subject the process to real seafood waste from Gollott’s Seafood in Biloxi. Contrary to the synthetic waste stream, there was a significant amount of water generated in the processing of the real seafood waste, so the researchers are planning to investigate whether the wastewater could also be used in the cultivation of the oil-accumulating microbes. If bench data indicates that the process is successful, other types of seafood waste (e.g., crabs, fish, etc.) will be evaluated.

Seafood-based biodiesel would help processors eliminate some waste disposal costs, which have been estimated at about $145,000 per year per producer. As a building block for fuel, the waste also would bring additional income streams from the products created by it.

“What we’re trying to do is find something that has a higher value than their current byproduct, the disposal of which must be paid for,” French said.

According to French, oil companies can take the oil produced from the seafood waste and mix it with diesel fuel. The biofuel would likely be mixed at 5 percent to 20 percent biofuel to 95 percent to 80 percent diesel. The oil produced from the seafood waste may be of the quality that can feed domestic uses, thus helping to decrease America’s dependence on imported oil.