Sargassum Seaweed

Beaches are popular tourist destinations and are beautiful with their white and golden sand and access to oceans. Until they are covered with decaying sargassum seaweed known as green, red or golden tides and causing loss of revenue to tourism, agriculture, and fisheries. These tides have been an issue since 2011 and not likely to go away anytime soon. The seaweed regularly washes up on beaches around the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean and a 5,500 mile stretch of the seaweed blanket stretches from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.

The seaweed cannot be buried in the sand but must be removed by heavy specialized equipment so it does not do damage to sea turtles and properly disposed of in a landfill. This is not the best solution as a disposal site must have a geomembrane to avoid the pollution of soil by leachates from the seaweed. The environmental and economic effects have led to a desperate search for solutions from the scientists and governments in many countries, but yet have led to effective action.

The markets for seaweed is projected to grow from USD 15.01 Billion in 2021 to USD 24.92 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 7.51% during the analysis period. The rise is contributed to the WHO’s highlighting of the importance of seaweed as an effective means of protecting people from the coronavirus. Commercial seaweed market will also see projected growth from its’ current value of 43,342.4 million in 2021 to 95,867.4 million in 2027.  

Our technology brings the solution to where the problem is located - to the beach. Our Phoenix 21 technologies will be adapted for the seaweed and the process will began by wringing out the excess waters from the seaweed. This water can be put back into the ocean or processed to remove the high content of rare, precious, and heavy metals in the seaweed. There are also large amounts of nitrogen in the seaweed which will yield a fertilizer high in nitrogen from our process. Another byproduct is seaweed based bioethanol as a new biofuel which does not have the environmental and economic vulnerability of a terrestrial biomass-based ethanol. Commercial exploration of this biomass for fuel, food, and pharmaceutical products could fund clean-up of the sargassum seaweed tides and off set the economic impact these tides have on areas heavily dependent on tourism. Seaweed Ash is a very valuable byproduct and is currently being sold by China for $2,000 USD per ton.  

Projects involving seaweed are always doable. The byproducts generated from our process create a good income for beach areas paying to get rid of the sargassum or investors looking to make money from the project. Our unit will help offset expenses because it is higher on production and less expensive on construction and operating costs. The continual run process from constantly feeding in the seaweed feedstock saves costs of starting and stopping equipment to process the sargassum. It is eco friendly and will not affect the environment or sea and beach life.