PALEA

Duration from 1.4.2020 - 31.12.2021, funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU) under contract number 35257/01-32.

Microalgae are considered a promising resource for many renewable raw materials. Various ingredients are of great interest as a supplier of high-quality proteins, as food supplements, natural colorants or as raw materials for cosmetic and medical products. However, the extraction of these substances is currently still usually associated with high costs. For many of the more interesting ingredients, the temperature increase during treatment and processing must be kept as low as possible, as they are not thermally stable. For this reason, chemical processes have mostly been used for digestion up to now, although these are questionable in terms of their environmental impact due to the solvents required.

Together with the Institut für Getreideverarbeitung (IGV) GmbH, the INP is therefore further developing an environmentally friendly and active ingredient-friendly plasma technology that has already proven promising in preliminary work. In this process, the cell walls of the algae become porous via shock waves generated directly by pulsed discharges in the algae suspension, allowing the ingredients to escape. In principle, this eliminates the need for freezing or treatment with enzymes as well as the use of solvents. In the future, the process is to be transferred to other types of algae and products.