Waste seafood processing

The dissolved-air flotation process is most commonly used for sewage and potable water treatment. It is also gaining popularity for the treatment of slaughterhouse, poultry processing, seafood processing, soap, and food processing wastes (Zoubulis et. al., 1991). 

Yang, T.C. and ZaU, R.R. 1984. Absorption of metals by natural polymers generated from seafood processing wastes. Ind. Eng. Chem. Prod. Res. Dev. 23(1) 168-172. 

Chitin (poly(N-acetyl-D-glucosatnine)) represents the second most abundant polysaccharide after cellulose. It is found in the exoskeleton of crustaceans and insects and in the cell wall of fungi and microorganisms [23], Arthropod shells (exoskeletons), the most easily accessible sources of chitin, contain 20-50% of chitin on a dry basis. Wastes of seafood processing industries ate used for the commercial production of chitin. 

Chitosan is obtained on an industrial scale by the alkahne deacetylation of chitin [23, 24], The main commercial soirrces of chitin are shells of shellfish (mainly crabs, shrimps, lobsters and krills), wastes of the seafood processing industry. Basically, the process consists of deproteinization with a dilute NaOH solution, deminerahzation with a dilute HCl solution and decolouration of the raw shell material. Chitin is obtained as an almost colourless to off-white powdery material. Chitosan is produced by deacetylating chitin using 40-50% aqueous alkah at 100-160°C for a few hom. The resultant chitosan has a degree of deacetylation up to 0.95. 

Shells of crab, shrimp, prawn and krill waste material from the seafood processing industry are the best sources of raw material for chitin. The raw shells are treated with warm hydrochloric acid whereby the calcium carbonate contained in the... 

Dr Hosokawa, director of the Minamata City hospital was conducting his own experiments based on the theory from the university He fed cats waste effluent from the factory that was producing acetaldehyde and was able to produce similar symptoms in them, and he detected other changes by pathological examination at autopsy The company that owned the factory, the Chisso Minamata Chemical Company, was aware of his work and by 1959 knew that it was likely that Minamata disease was caused by the effluent from their factory In i960 methyl mercury was detected in seafood and in 1961 it was detected in sediments derived from the factory. In 1966 the factory installed a water circulation system which removed the mercury pollution. The factory eventually stopped the process in 1968 and in the same year the Japanese government announced its opinion that the disease was due to consumption of methyl mercury in contaminated fish and seafood. 

Bough W.A., 1976. Chitosan a polymer from seafood waste for use in treatment of food processing wastes and activated sludge. Proc. Biochem. 11 13-16. 

Morrissey, M.T., Park, J.W., and Huang, L. 2000. Surimi processing waste Its control and utilization. In Park, J.W. (ed.), Surimi and Surimi Seafood. Marcel Dekker Inc., New York, pp. 127-165. 

Streptococci species. Streptococcus equi is a commercially used microbe to produce hyaluronic acid using complex medium.Vazquez et al., proposed a seafood by-products-based culture medium for the production of hyaluronic acid by Streptococcus zooepidemicus.The medium contains mussel processing waste as carbon source and tuna peptone as protein substrate and thus can be a cheap alternative to synthetic peptone-based medium. Now, genetically modified strain with high productivity of hyaluronic acid is in place to meet the challenges with conventional fermentation. 

---