Life Cycle Assessment of land-based seaweed cultivation for packaging material

Duration of the project

01.06.2023. - 15.11.2023.

Countries and institutions involved in the project

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University of Latvia
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Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences
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Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Science

Project manager

PhD Karina Balina

Aims of the project

The goal of the current project is to quantitatively assess the sustainability of land-based seaweed cultivation for packaging production using life cycle analysis (LCA) along the entire production chain, from cultivation to product development at lab scale.

Main activities of the project

  1. Co-supervision of a Masters student for the LCA of land-based seaweed cultivation for producing packaging material (University of Latvia and Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences)
  2. Visit of the Latvian supervisor to the German institution (Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences and Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research)
  3. Visit of the German student to the University of Latvia for training on using the LCA software
  4. Collection of data for the life-cycle assessment (Alfred Wegener Institute, Bremerhaven University of Applied Sciences, ROVAL GmbH)
  5. Publication of the project results in an open access journal
  6. Defense of the Master Thesis

Public events in the frame of the project

A guest seminar will be given on June 8th, 2023 by the Latvian supervisor (Karīna Bāliņa) during her visit to the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research.

Direct and indirect target group of the project

Direct: 3 people, the supervisors and the Master’s student, will directly benefit from the project

 

Indirect: 10-15 people will indirectly benefit from the outcome of the project, because an LCA assessment of seaweed cultivation for packaging production at lab scale will provide important data on the sustainability of the current research efforts of several research groups and companies that are working together on this topic.