When a Belgium-based company specializing in the production of freeze-dried microalgae for shrimp and fish hatcheries wanted to commercialize, the only solution for harvesting the algae cells intact was Evodos.
The client faced unique challenges:
- The algae needed to be buoyant for use in hatcheries
- Particle size couldn’t exceed 7 to 12 pm and had to be easily digestible, to meet the needs of young hatchlings
- Algae cell walls had to remain intact during the harvesting process to ensure nutritional value was maintained
Specific types of algae met the criteria but harvesting posed a new barrier. Classic separation technologies caused damage up to 20 percent of the harvest, a considerable loss since it takes 1,000 liters of water to produce 1 liter of paste, which then results in 200 grams of dried product.
Evodos helped develop a two-step process that first removed water using a pre-concentration process and then used the Evodos units to remove the remaining water from the fragile algae.
The result – high quality and efficiency, and an effective entry into large international markets.