SAVE

Caribbean are facing massive and random arrivals of sargassum, pelagic algae that cause potential health issues for the local population during stranding events and also impact tourist activity in the islands. The partners of this project have developed an agro-ecological anaerobic digestion (AD) expertise based on agro-resources. Sargassum processing via anaerobic digestion is intended to produce energy, mineral fertilizers and/or organic amendments. As stranding events occur randomly, sargassum has to be co-valorized with other local bio-resources in order to favor a continuous process. The project involves all the actors that will intervene/take part in sargassum processing, i.e., from collecting sargassum and local bio-resources to producing energy and valorizing the digestates as amendments and/or fertilizers. The levels and presence of heavy metals specific to sargassum will be carefully checked and controlled throughout the valorization process. A first step will consist in qualifying the various sargassum processing pathways with a Multicriteria Life Cycle Analysis (LCA): composting, incineration, anaerobic digestion. Then, in a second step, the project will delineate the sargassum collection areas, and define the two forms of stabilized preservation processes – dried / siled – under controlled sanitary conditions. In a third step, the project will characterize the optimal conditions of anaerobic digestion of various formulations including sargassum and local bioresources. Thus, one of the objectives of the project is to suggest scenarios that take the overall territorial valorization of sargassum into account together with local bioresources at the scale of the French West Indies. The valorization process will also include the agronomic characterization of the resulting digestates based on experimental data, taking the absence of harmful elements into account.