University of Alberta researchers are working with an Alberta startup to get an edible coal-derived protein into the marketplace, replacing protein ingredients in animal feed. The innovative research, powered in part by a USD 1.7-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is being conducted by David Bressler and Ruurd Zijlstra in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.
Working with Cv̄ictus, a company that brought the project to the university for modernization, Bressler’s Biorefining Conversions and Fermentation Laboratory has improved the technology needed to make single cell protein (SCP). Their collaboration resurrects technology first developed and approved for use 40 years ago in Europe, which is now being tested for potential use in Canada.
Using a patented process, Cv̄ictus is focused on extracting hydrogen from deep coal seams without mining, converting it to produce clean methanol and then from there, making SCP for use in livestock feed. The leftover carbon is then captured and sequestered back underground.
The technology leverages Alberta’s major industries of energy and agriculture, says Brett Wilcox, CEO of Cv̄ictus. “Alberta has massive energy resources, so by turning those hydrocarbon resources into protein, the potential is there to supply most of the animal feed market in Canada and the world.”
The fermentation method Bressler’s lab developed improves on a bacteria that was first isolated and commercialized in the 1970s and 1980s by a former chemical company in Britain. At the time, the SCP created from that process was certified and mass-produced for livestock feed in Europe but was sidelined by high methanol prices.
Through their work and consulting with the developers of the original technology, Bressler and his team of researchers have since replicated and improved the process “to get optimum productivity,” he said. “We want to get the highest conversion rates of methanol to high-value protein with the best amino acid composition possible.”
Supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant, the product is now being tested by Zijlstra in feed trials with livestock. The research is vital to earning certification from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for commercializing the SCP in Canada.
Production is being scaled up at the U of A’s Agri-Food Discovery Place to make hundreds of kilograms of the powdered SCP, which will then be blended into feed given to pigs and poultry. Over the next two years, Zijlstra will assess the Cv̄ictus product for key qualities, including nutrient digestibility and growth performance.
“If SCP is found to be a valuable and safe ingredient to include in feed, particularly for animals with high nutritional demands, that will be a win,” he noted, adding that the innovation could help other countries provide protein-rich feed to their livestock.
