Cyanobacteria

Project "Cyanobacteria" data sheet

The following table provides information about the project.

 Partnership

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Map

 Project objective

One of the major consumers in the world today of energy and natural resources, as well as one of the principal emitters of greenhouse gases, is the industrial fixation of atmospheric nitrogen into available ammonical form. This procedure, called the Haber- Bosch process, has been enhancing agriculture yields with synthetic fertilizers, enabling the great rise in the world population during the 20th century, but at present times, it has reached a point where it is no longer sustainable. Organic agriculture addresses this issue by using natural renewable resources to grow food ecologically. Technical approaches such as hydroponics (and also fertigation and drip irrigation), do so by an efficient use of water and fertilizers to achieve higher yields. These niche markets are embraced by conscientious consumers, and today boast a market value of billions of € and high growth rates. Combining the sustainability of organic agriculture with the efficacy of advanced methods require high quality, naturally or biologically derived fertilizers. Organic fertilizers on the market today are expensive, unpredictable and their nitrogen is either not available or has high sodium content, making them unsuitable for robust industrial use. Our innovation produces nitrogen fertilizer from air and water, efficiently and ecologically in situ. The process we are developing will harness the innate ability of cyanobacteria to fix atmospheric nitrogen into a stable form of ammonia or nitrate, using the sun as the energy source. This solution will enable greenhouses and farms to sell organic produce at a premium while boosting their crop yield. After we complete the feasibility analysis in this project, we aim to continue to SME Phase two in order to scale up our process and reach a commercial readiness level. Then, we forecast sales of millions of Euros annually within three years, starting with our partner greenhouses and proceeding to other projects internationally.