Canada’s Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development at the Marine Institute will receive $100,000 from the Fisheries Technology and New Opportunities Program to continue research into extracting chitin from shrimp shells.
Chitin is a naturally occurring substance found in various shellfish species such as crab and shrimp and can be used in a range of industrial applications, including waste water treatment, cosmetic production, and medical applications such as wound dressings.
These shells have generally been discarded using current production practices, but should this process prove viable, it could create greater economic benefits for the processing sector.
“To continue to promote a sustainable fishery, we need to look at reducing the amount of waste we produce. With the extraction of chitin, we put more of the shrimp to work for us and we are improving on our current methods of that process”, said Heather Manual, Director of the Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development at the Marine Institute.
The new process the Marine Institute is studying is expected to significantly reduce the use of chemicals used to extract chitin, which in turn will improve the cost effectiveness of the process. The current industry partner, Barry Group International, has been researching the chitin extraction process for a number of years.
