From the 1^st to the 3^rd December 2015, the second issue of the ALGAE EUROPE Conference took place in Lisbon, Portugal. ALGAE EUROPE 2015 is a joint venture of the 2^nd EABA and EC Algae Contractors’ Conference and the 9^th International Algae Congress.

After its very successful initiation last year in Florence, Italy, the 2^nd ALGAE EUROPE Congress was even bigger: On 3 well-filled days, the participants and visitors were offered 11 sessions, 64 speakers, 60 poster presentations, a technology trade show and much more.

PUFAChain is especially proud that, for the second time, we were invited to present our latest findings to more than 220 delegates from 28 different countries including several representatives of the European Commission.
Now we are already looking forward to the ALGAE EUROPE 2016 in the UK and are certain that we can present new exciting findings!

For the second annual project meeting of PUFAChain, all partners were welcomed by NATEX in Ternitz, Austria. From the 6th – 8th of October 2015, the latest progress was presented and discussed in detail. So far, a total of 220 microalgae strains have been characterized for their PUFA content. Amongst these strains, also unexploited (new) species and strains were discovered showing promising EPA or EPA and DHA contents. 20 of these strains are now tested for optimized PUFA yield in growth experiments at lab and pilot scale, while 5 strains have already been upscaled in tubular photobioreactors. While membrane filtration so far worked flawlessly, cell disruption for fatty acid extraction seems to be more difficult. The partners are optimistic, though, that the soon to be completed extraction plant will be the key to this issue and allow the project to stay right on track. For the sustainability assessment, technological, environmental and socio-economic assessments are being performed, comparing the PUFAChain life cycle to current reference systems based on fish oil. This will underline the advantages of PUFA from microalgae sources and provide an important input for the entire microalgae industry.
After the meeting, the PUFAChain partners were invited to visit the company Innoweld, a sister company of project partner NATEX. Innoweld is specialized in the manufacturing of high pressure equipment and provided the partners with interesting insights into the production of high pressure vessels that will be used in the PUFAChain extraction plant.
The meeting was again concluded with a very positive feedback and outlook as all partners are getting excited for the second half of PUFAChain and the things to come.
The next General Assembly Meeting will take place in October 2016 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

From the 6th to the 8th of October 2014, the first annual meeting of the European project PUFAChain was held in Lisbon, Portugal.

The meeting was organised and moderated by the Portuguese partner A4F and started right away with a demonstration of the A4F experimental photobioreactor unit in Lisbon.

On the following two days the work progress of the first year was reported, analysed and discussed by all partners in detail. So far, no severe problems occurred within the project and first successes, e.g. in the selection of interesting algae strains and the filtration of these algae, could be reported.

In addition to the meeting itself, A4F also organised a field trip to one of the largest microalgae production facilities in the world. This visit gave the excited partners a detailed insight in the industrial production of algae and also a prospect of how the project PUFAChain could look in the future.
In the end of the meeting all partners were very positive about the progress and the collaboration so far and were already looking forward eagerly to the work and challenges ahead.

During the next project year, pilot scale production of the selected microalgae as well as omega-3 fatty acids extraction methods will be performed to deploy the biorefinery concept at pilot scale.

The next general assembly meeting is scheduled for October 2015.