REALM – Reusing Effluents from Agriculture to unLock the potential of Microalgae

The main aim of REALM is to develop an innovative, sustainable, and highly efficient strategy for microalgae biomass production and processing, applicable to all European countries. This will be accomplished by using the wastewater of soilless greenhouses to grow microalgae, removing residual fertilisers in the water for safe reuse or discharge.

Microalgae production will be automated with the help of newly developed sensors and artificial intelligence to lower production costs and increase productivity. Additionally, a novel biorefinery process will be developed to produce biostimulants, biopesticides and feed for aquaculture from the produced microalgae, thus valorising waste: the drainwater. Newly developed sensors will monitor the composition of the growth medium, the quality of the culture and other biological, physical and chemical variables of microalgae production. This will greatly improve process control and consequently productivity. By coupling the collected data with artificial intelligence, REALM will develop predictive models and digital twins to determine the most productive cultivation setup and conditions for each microalgae strain and environment; for instance, the optimal cellular concentration of microalgae in the growth medium, important for optimal exposure of microalgae to light.