Immersion Project: INALVE 1

Alex Wakefield, Freddy Guiheneuf, Hubert Bonnefond, Inalve

 

In a context of an increasing of the global population, protein sources are need. Microalgae are one of the solutions as new alternate and unconventional protein sources. In fact, they are rich in protein (6-52%), carbohydrate (5-23%) and lipid (7-23%). Moreover, they growth fast, have a high reproduction and low greenhouse gas emission. A lot of researches are made all over the world, and new systems of culture have immerged. Inalve is one of the companies which is developing a new technology to produce microalgae. This start up build in 2016 by Hubert Bonnefond and Christophe Vasseur at Villefranche sur Mer, is becoming very successful and has great opportunity to lead this domain. They create a new biotechnology to cultivated microalgae in biofilm. 

However, one of the limits to microalgae production is the contamination. In fact, microorganism present on the culture can growth and becoming a real problem. They disturb and decrease the production of microalgae which could lead to dramatic lost. Two major contaminants identified are zooplaktons and cyanobacteria. Zooplanktons graze the microalgae, reducing the production rate. Cyanobacterias are in competitions with microalgae in term of nutrients. If those contaminants are not treated shortly, they can lead to the collapse of microalgae culture. 



 

Started Fall 2019

Current student: Juliette Armeni