Analysis of Seaweeds from South West England as a Biorefinery Feedstock

Abstract

Seaweeds contain many varied and commercially valuable components, from individual pigments and metabolites through to whole biomass, and yet they remain an under cultivated and underutilised commodity. Currently, commercial exploitation of seaweeds is predominantly limited to whole biomass consumption or single product extracts for the food industry. The development of a seaweed biorefinery, based around multiple products and services, could provide an important opportunity to exploit new and currently underexplored markets. Here, we assessed the native and invasive seaweeds on the South West coast of the UK to determine their characteristics and potential for exploitation through a biorefinery pipeline, looking at multiple components including pigments, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and other metabolites.

Sargassum Inundations in Turks and Caicos: Methane Potential and Proximate, Ultimate, Lipid, Amino Acid, Metal and Metalloid Analyses

“…All the Sargassum samples were high in moisture (82-87%) and rich in ash (34-47% dw) and are comparable to other brown seaweeds (80-90% moisture, 15-44% ash dw) [25,[64][65][66], and in particular, other members of the Sargassum genus (80-90% moisture and 14-44% ash dw) [6,64,[67][68][69]. The ash content of S. fluitans collected from the Caribbean has been reported as 24% (St Lucia) and 19-22% (British Virgin Islands) [34].…”

“…Shellfish are rich in iron (haemoglobin present for oxygen transport) [82]. The iron content of seaweeds and seagrasses can vary widely, with brown seaweeds reported with an iron level of up to 9300 mg kg −1 , with physically small species tending to have higher levels [64,69,83]. However, Sargassum species can also contain very high iron levels (1569 mg kg −1 ), and the difference may be just natural sample variability.…”

“…There has been a range of studies on metalloids in seaweed [69,84,85], but only limited data is available on pelagic Sargassum. However, Rodríguez-Martínez et al [43] recently completed a study on the concentrations of fourteen different elements (Al, As, Ca, Cl, K, Mg, Mn, P, Rb, S, Si, Sr, Th and U) in pelagic Sargassum collected from various sites along the Mexican Caribbean coast, from August 2018 to April 2019, and showed that there was both seasonal and spatial variability in metalloids.…”

Invasive Seaweeds in the Iberian Peninsula: A Contribution for Food Supply

“…Despite the widespread distribution of C. peregrina , there are just a few studies regarding their nutritional profile and biomass valorization. Nevertheless, a group of researchers harvested this species in Southwest England in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and determined that the composition of C. peregrina is mostly minerals, representing 85.3% of this seaweed dry weight, in which 12.2% DW are carbohydrates, 2.48% DW protein, and 0.8% DW lipids [ 118 ]. Further analysis was performed in order to evaluate their micronutrient profile ( Table 4 ).…”

“…Despite the high silicon content (252.29 mg/g) [ 118 ], it was estimated that a daily dietary intake of 20–50 mg silicon/day by an average adult with 60 kg is unlikely to cause health problems [ 120 ]. Nevertheless, it is necessary to consider that the aluminum concentration found in C. peregrina exceeds the tolerable upper intake recommended by EFSA.…”