Characterisation and extraction of valuable components from marine growth

Introduction

CessCon Decom Ltd offers environmentally responsible decommissioning services to their clients, including the removal and onshore dismantlement of offshore infrastructure. The decommissioning process involves addressing marine growth, such as mussels, anemones, seaweeds, and corals, which attach to and proliferate on submerged structures. The current approach to managing marine growth entails either packaging it for agricultural use or disposing of it in landfill sites. This project aimed to investigate the possibility of extracting higher value products from this marine waste material.

Challenge

There’s limited knowledge about the potential value of marine growth on decommissioned offshore assets. CessCon Decom wanted to characterise the nutritional composition of the marine growth and assess the feasibility of extracting valuable components.

Solution

IBioIC funding from our Feasiblity fund enabled CessCon Decom to work with Boon-Seang Chu at Abertay University. CessCon Decom provided marine growth samples to Abertay University from oil rig jackets. Dr Chu undertook analysis which included nutritional composition and mineral profiling which showed a significant amount of calcium. This discovery then directed the focus of the remaining analytical work to the extraction of calcium carbonate and extraction of protein using chemical extraction and enzymatic hydrolysis techniques.

Outcome

The project established that calcium carbonate is abundant in marine growth samples and that this can be recovered by calcination. Calcium carbonate has wide range of industrial applications from filler and whitening agent in paper, paint, and coatings, to cement, plastics, personal healthcare products and agriculture, and as an absorbent in wastewater treatment. CessCon Deecom anticipate that a calcium carbonate rich product for use in construction will be developed following further successful research. While Dr Chu gained experience of analysing a new material.