Newfoundland’s Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development plans to establish a demonstration bio-refinery that will convert fish oils into biodiesel, with support from the Provincial Government.
Darin King, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture has announced support of this initiative with $89,100 (€67,600) in funding through the Fisheries Technology and New Opportunities Program.
A demonstration bio-refinery is an extension of previous work undertaken by the Marine Institute where a biodiesel refining unit was acquired and processed salmon oil and cod oil into a useable biodiesel. The oil that was used was acquired out of province. Previously, it was difficult to extract local oil from the available by-products because effective extraction equipment was not available.
The next stage of this research is to develop processing methodologies to utilise marine waste oils from the salmonid aquaculture, pelagics and the sealing industry as biodiesel feed stocks. This will form the basis of the demonstration bio-refinery for the conversion of waste fish oils currently underutilised.
"For the past five years, we have been actively engaged in developing a marine waste oil biodiesel production system specifically engineered for the unique situation in Newfoundland and Labrador," said Heather Manuel, Director of Marine Institute's Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development. "Having already identified potential sources and availability of marine biodiesel feedstock and studied marine-based biodiesel production and marketing issues in the province, this funding will take us to a level where we can work to successfully overcome the challenges of converting marine oils into biodiesel."
