What is happening in the world of Seaweed Science?
2021-04-21
On a regular basis, North Sea Farmers organizes a research group meeting with members of the community to keep each other informed about the ongoing seaweed research. To give you an idea of the wide potential of seaweed, this article reflects some of the insights that were shared during the most recent meeting.Seaweed as potential medicine for Alzheimer disease
Monique Mulder is researcher at Erasmus MC and investigates the potential of seaweed as treatment for Alzheimer's disease. In particular, the seaweed-derived 'plant sterols' are receiving a lot of attention because of their pharmaceutical properties. Recently NIOZ published a study into the effect of seaweed cultivation on the content of those plant sterols. Important take-out for seaweed farmers: harvest seaweed of the highest quality!
A win-win-win for the oyster, seaweed and wind farm
Within the Belgian pilot of the UNITED project, UGhent focuses on the cultivation of seaweed in combination with the European flat oyster together with wind energy installed in an offshore wind farm. The scour protection around wind turbine poles may encourage the formation of natural oyster reefs while oyster aquaculture and reef restoration may cross-fertilize each other. The definition of a circular system!
Turning seaweed into clothes?
HereWear is a new initiative aiming to develop new technologies to use local, sustainable resources for recyclable clothing. TNO will play a role in this European project and will, among other things, use seaweed to produce cellulose based textiles.
These are just a few examples of ongoing developments indicating the potential of seaweed for a greener world. The results are important for the development of the seaweed sector. Some of the projects have the potential to support our mission to make smart use of space at sea by building multi-use sea farms. Where other researchers give value to seaweed by creating applications and therefore a sales market. We, as the North Sea Farmers, see it as our job to connect these initiatives to jumpstart the seaweed sector!
