Aquaculture Europe 2015 – Proviron
Technology scaled up for microalgae production
Nutrition that leads to better yields for farmers P
roviron is a Belgian chemical company, established in the late 1970s as an engineering enterprise. Aft er 10 years of developing chemical processes, Proviron launched its own producti on sites and gradually grew to employ around 300 people and boast an annual turnover of
about 180 million euros. With sites in Belgium and the US, Proviron has a worldwide market for its products. Recently, four major development teams have been created to develop new products for the company in dif- ferent fi elds. The Provifeed product line is one of these new developments and is the new product line for animal nutriti on, targeti ng livestock and aq- uaculture. The products in the Provifeed range are based on esters of fatt y acids and on micro algae, which are culti vated in a closed photobioreator. The algae technology, named ProviAPT, is designed and produced by
Proviron in Belgium by a small but highly focused team. Not only was the photobioreactor developed by Proviron, but also the fully automated ma- chinery to produce the reactors was designed and built by Proviron. Due to the design and engineering of the producti on units, it is possible to control an algae farm from a distance, with minimum manpower, when using the ProviAPTsystem. Because of the modularity of the reactore, more algae species can be culti vated and post-processed on one farm, with minimum contaminati on risk. The development of the technology has led to a mid-scale producti on site
in Belgium, which is GMP approved for animal nutriti on. This quality label guarantees the absence of contaminants, pathogenic bacteria, such as salmonella and vibrio. At the plant in Belgium, two algae species are currently culti vated for the
aquaculture industry: Nannochloropsis spp. and Isochrysis. For both species the protein content and fat content is stable during the
diff erent seasons, which is important for the hatcheries that use the algae for feeding their precious larvae. Good development of the larvae leads to fewer malformati ons in the older fi sh and to a bett er yield for the fi sh farm- ers. For Nannochloropsis the content of the w-3 fatt y acid EPA (C20:5(n-3))
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www.fishfarmer-magazine.com
Above: The producti on site Proviron Right: Dispersed Nannochloropsis no seidmentati on Opposite page, top: Dispersed Nanno microscope single cells Opposite page, below: Isochrysis resolubilised single cells
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