Eurostars application accepted – marine carbohydrates

Eurostars recently accepted Alginor’s project application “Converting carbohydrate polymers from Nordic algal biomass into high-value biotech products”. The project’s focus is the carbohydrates in Laminaria hyperborea and includes alginates and cellulose.

Eurostars is a joint programme between EU through Horizon 2020 and national research organisation (i.e. the Research Council of Norway) through the EUREKA network. The programme funds and supports SMEs engaged in R&D and international collaboration. Alginor will collaborate with the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, whose researchers have made great discoveries in native cellulose of algae.

The project’s total budget of approximately NOK 11 million is funded at 50% aid intensity through 2020–2022.

Through the project, Alginor will seek to extract the aforementioned carbohydrates in the most efficient manner possible and convert them into products of high value and quality, further improving the AORTA technology.

One target is to produce alginate with record-breaking high contents of guluronic acid – another is cellulose with unmatched mechanical properties possibly exceeding those of soft-wood-based cellulose.