Contact Facility Operator(s): Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development (CASD)

Facility Location: Ridge Road campus, St. John's

This facility was established in response to the significant quantities of processing discards generated from the fishing and aquaculture industries each year in Atlantic Canada.

The facility opened in December 2006 with assistance from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Government, Atlantic Canadian universities and industry partners.

This 270 square metre facility is equipped with:

• a variety of extraction, concentrating and drying equipment,
• extrusion processing equipment and
• a 208 litre batch biodiesel processor.

This facility is available to clients for:

• lab scale isolation of potentially valuable by-products from seafood waste streams
• the purification and concentration of valuable by-products
• pilot scale, preliminary production of valuable by-products prior to commercialization
• conducting industrial workshops for processing employees and other personnel

The Bioprocessing Research Unit at the Centre for Aquaculture and Seafood Development was formed in 2006 in response to significant quantities of processing discards generated from the fishing and aquaculture industries each year in Atlantic Canada. Its mandate is to maximize utilization of those discards by optimizing each step of the value chain. This starts with characterization, handling and stabilization of underutilized materials which can be further processed into high-end bio-products, such as omega-3 concentrates, bio-fuels and nutritional supplements. The Centre operates two facilities - a Research Laboratory and a Pilot Plant.

The bioprocessing research laboratory is equipped for analytical work and small-scale process development. This 228 square meter facility features a laboratory-scale spray dryer and freeze dryer as well as a Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometry system, a variety of food chemistry and environmental analysis equipment. The bioprocessing laboratory is available to industry and university clients for:

• Lab scale purification and concentration of valuable marine extracts
• Lab scale production (up to 5 kg) of marine bio-products
• Testing and analysis of products and processing effluents
• General food chemistry, oil, biodiesel and waste water analysis

For a complete list of equipment and analytical services, please view the flyers:

Bioprocessing Laboratory Flyer

Analytical Services Flyer

The pilot plant facility is outfitted with various tank systems, separation, particle size reduction and drying equipment that are used to perform scale-up studies. Key pieces of the facility are Atlantic Canada‘s only pilot-scale biodiesel production unit and an oil extraction line with a capacity of 1000 kg/h. The bioprocessing pilot plant is available to industry and university clients for:

• Pilot-scale process development (5-500 kg)
• Equipment test runs, manufacturer’s demonstrations and industry workshops
• Procurement of marine sample material
• Contract research

For a complete list of equipment, please view the flyer:

Bioprocessing Pilot-Plant Flyer