Fish feed from wastes

With a global fish production/catch of about 100 million tons per year, fish feed is being more important in our daily life. Considering salmon as an example, we need 2,5 kg fish feed for producing each kg of the fish. We together with our parner companies, Cewatech AB and Nordic Paper in Säffle are developing zygomycetes fungi as fish feed in a large pilot plant. The pilot is now producing the fungus from the byproducts of the pulp industries, and the product is going to be tested by fishfeed indutries in large scales. These organisms are safe for humas as being used as daily food (tempeh) in Southeast Asia such as Indonesia for centuries. Let's hope this development lead to prevent catching small fishes for feeding large fishes.


(A zygomycete fungus used in this work. The picture was taken by our PhD student Patrik Lennartsson)

A PhD thesis on biological superabsorbents

Here is a PhD thesis by our former PhD student Akram Zamani about Superabsorbent Polymers from the Cell Wall of Zygomycetes Fungi. Akram started her PhD in Borås 2006 and defended her thesis in Oct. 2010. Here are the published articles from her thesis:

1- Determination of glucosamine and N-acetyl glucosamine in fungal cell walls. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 2008; 56 (18): 8314-8318.

2- Extraction and precipitation of chitosan from cell wall of zygomycetes fungi by dilute sulfuric acid. Biomacromolecules 2007; 8 (12): 3786-3790.

3- Production of low molecular weight chitosan by hot dilute sulfuric acid. BioResources 2010; 5 (3): 1554-1564.

4- Temperature shifts for extraction and purification of zygomycetes chitosan with dilute sulfuric acid. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2010; 11(8): 2976-2987.

5- A new foaming technique for production of superabsorbents from carboxymethyl chitosan. Carbohydrate Polymers 2010; 80 (4): 1091-1101.

6- Effects of partial dehydration and freezing temperature on the morphology and water binding capacity of carboxymethyl chitosan-based superabsorbents. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 2010; 49: 8094-8099.

7- Effect of carboxymethylation conditions on water binding capacity of chitosan-based superabsorbents. Carbohydrate Research, in press.

A PhD thesis on Citrus Waste Biorefinery

Here is a PhD thesis of our former PhD student Mohammad Pourbafrani, about Citrus Waste Biorefinery: Process Development, Simulation and Economic Analysis. He came to Borås as PhD student in 2006 and was graduated in May 2010. Here are the published papers from his thesis:

1- Protective Effect of Encapsulation in Fermentation of Limonene-contained Media and Orange Peel Hydrolyzate, International Journal of Molecular Science, 2007, 8(8), 777-787.
2- Optimization Study of Citrus Wastes Saccharification by Dilute-Acid hydrolysis, BioResources, 2008,3(1),108-122.
3- Production of biofuels, limonene and pectin from citrus wastes, Bioresource Technology, 2010,101(11), 4246-4250
4- Process design and economic analysis of a citrus waste biorefinery with biofuels and limonene as products, Bioresource Technology, 101(19): 7382-7388

Language and culture, a challenge in collaboration

In the last few years, I travelled all around the world and discussed with many people on converting wastes into value-added products. Having different language is an obvious problem, but we tried to find a common language, which is usually English. The other challenge is the culture. We should make sure that the audience understand what we mean, and not what we say. Therefore, talking about a sensitive issue through interpreter is not an easy task. Universities and their global networks with each other and local networks with their communities make a great help in this issue, and can be considered as link between societies.


(A funny video from Youtube about 24 different English accents)