Fotosintetica and Microbiologica Srl (F&M)
Work Package 1 leader
Fotosintetica & Microbiologica Srl (F&M) is a spin-off company of the University of Florence founded in 2004 to exploit the know-how on microalgae physiology and mass cultivation developed by a research group coordinated by Prof. Mario Tredici. The group has developed and tested with different microalgae a variety of closed systems (photobioreactors) such as the “Green Wall Panel” (patents WO 2004/074423 and WO2011/013104). Reactors of this type are being commercialized and are currently in use for renewable energy and CO2 biofixation (ENEL S.p.A - Brindisi, Italy; Eni S.p.A. - Gela, Italy; AlgaeFuels Consortium - Chile) as well as for production of aquaculture feeds and nutraceuticals (Archimede Ricerche S.r.l. - Genova, Italy; Necton S.A., Portugal).
F&M provides consultancy to private and public entities on microalgae cultivation and applications in agro-environment, and for production of renewable fuels, feeds, functional foods, natural drugs and cosmetics. With the support of Roquette Freres (France), F&M has created a collection of more than 800 microalgal strains newly isolated from different habitats around the world which have been characterized for their growth capacity and biochemical composition. A smaller proprietary collection of about 150 strains, in part tested outdoors, is available for collaborative R&D projects and industrial applications.
The main activity of F&M in the NOMORFILMS project will be to cultivate outdoors in Green Wall Panels (from about 10 L to 200 L) the selected microalgal strains to evaluate productivity of the molecules of interest and obtain biomass for the tests and data for LCA analysis.
