Professor of Molecular Plant Biology Yagut Allahverdiyeva-Rinne explains how new algae research projects are turning industrial effluent into valuable algae biomass.
The AlgaCircle project, funded by Business Finland, aims to create an innovative circular economy concept that produces food, feed and agrochemicals from microalgae. The project has received over €1 million in funding.
The University of Turku has received €3.3 million in EU funding for a doctoral training project that responds to the current need for experts by training 25 doctoral researchers from fields related to green and digital transition.
The Photosynthetic Microbes team from the University of Turku received over 900 000 € to build a large algae plant for the validation of cultivation processes in the Nordic environment. The team will grow microalgae in drain water from greenhouses to clean water, recover nutrients and lower microalgae production costs.
Ethylene is one of the most important and widely used organic chemicals. The research group at the University of Turku led by Associate Professor Yagut Allahverdiyeva-Rinne has designed a thin-layer artificial biofilm with embedded cyanobacterial cell factories which were specifically engineered for photosynthetic production of “green” ethylene. The fabricated biofilms have sustained ethylene production for up to 40 days.