ISSN: 2375-446X
V. Venugopal
The global seafood industry generates significant amounts of waste, consisting of low value by-catch and processing discards, which include shell, head, bone intestine, fin, skin, etc. besides voluminous amounts of nutrient-rich wastewater as process effluents. These discards and effluents, if not properly valorized, are responsible for heavy losses of valuable nutrients as well as for serious environmental hazards. The problems can be addressed by valorization of the waste by environmentally savvy green processes. These generally involve bioconversion based on microbial fermentation or action of externally added enzymes, which release the ingredients from the food waste matrices. The released nutrients, biomaterials, industrial chemicals and also bio-energy are isolated by appropriate green processes. Cultivation of microalgae in seafood waste generates algal biomass, as single cell proteins (SCP), which are rich sources of proteins, oil, polysaccharides, bio-energy and others. A bio-refinery approach for multiple components recovery is economically viable that can contribute towards a sustainable bio-economy.