On the morning of August 24th, 18 delegates from the Colloquium on the Creation of New Earth-Oriented Industries by the One Earth Guardians Development Program (hereinafter, OEGs), Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, embarked on the journey to see with their own eyes the creation of the new microalgae-based industry – a promising endeavor led by CHITOSE Group.
The visit was possible with the support of the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (hereinafter, NEDO), a long-term supporter of the CHITOSE’s microalgae-focused initiative, the original purpose of MATSURI. Among the visitors were several faculty members of the University of Tokyo, undergraduate and graduate students, Japanese company representatives, as well as NEDO representatives – an exemplary case of the Industry-Academia-Government collaboration, united by the potential of microalgae.
Microalgae are not especially picky about their habitat, yet reliable industrial-scale microalgae production requires certain conditions – year-round stable weather with abundant sunlight, warm temperatures, the absence of major natural or anthropogenic disasters, as well as strategic location for logistical distribution. CHITOSE has leveraged optimal conditions of Borneo Island, setting up two microalgae production facilities in Malaysia and Brunei, which became the main destinations of this visit.
When 5 Hectares are Too Big Yet Too Small
The world’s largest microalgae production facility*1, CHITOSE Carbon Capture Central*2, also known as C4. Located in Sarawak, Borneo, a home for Bornean orangutans. It boasts of 5 hectares hungry for CO2 microalgae, bubbling and multiplying in the equatorial sun of the sunny island.
How big (or how small) is 5 hectares? Just as the sense of time, it depends on how you look at it. Five hectares, roughly about five baseball fields, stretch wide enough to lose the horizon in the endless maze of green photobioreactors (hereinafter, PBRs). The sheer amazement of the scale, as well as of the amount of work that went into constructing it, has quickly surfaced on the visitors’ faces when Senior BioEngineer Jose Malapascua and BioEngineer Iori Nozawa explained the construction and purpose of the facility.
1 hectare yields 70 tons of dry biomass per year, while absorbing 140 tons of CO2 – such capabilities were made possible by CHITOSE through a set of adjustments, including PBR modifications, strain development, medium optimization and more. The visitors were especially impressed by the fact that biomass can be collected every 3 to 4 days, making it a very dynamic and time-efficient production process.
CHITOSE’s next major objective is to expand production capacity to 100*3 hectares by 2027, a scale 20 times larger than its current facility. Perhaps it is the symbolic weight of a three-digit number, that makes this target feel particularly ambitious. Reactions to this announcement often blend surprise with a touch of skepticism: “Is it really possible to achieve such scale?”
But there was a slight change in the feedback after we visited the KPF Palm Oil Mill – “5 hectares, and even 100 hectares, is very little. Just a small fraction of the vast palm plantations.”
Palm oil, which overtook animal fat as the main ingredient in soap production in the 19th century, rapidly developed into a booming industry, diversifying raw materials for candle making, rubber production, detergents, industrial lubricants, and more. Over the course of three centuries, palm plantations have expanded to cover almost 25 million hectares, with Malaysia and Indonesia accounting for over 80% of global palm oil production. Such results were achieved through proactive restructuring of existing industries and early innovators adapting technology – something that MATSURI is actively working on in regard to microalgae. By positioning microalgae as a new raw material, CHITOSE is unlocking not only a pathway to sustainable and stable decarbonized production, but also practical solutions to pressing environmental challenges, including water scarcity, fossil fuel dependence, and more.
On the other hand, adopting something completely new comes with its own “pain,” especially the challenge of separating from long-used fossil resources. At first, new materials may be expensive, and it takes time to figure out the “how-to” in each industry. For this, CHITOSE has an answer: large-scale microalgae production for stable and affordable raw materials, along with early joint application development.
“If palms can cover millions of hectares, why can’t microalgae?” said one of the participants. After visiting a palm plantation, developing large-scale microalgae “plantations” suddenly no longer seemed like a sci-fi idea but rather a logical step in the growth of a new industry. Commercially viable scale is estimated to be only 2,000 hectares – just a fraction of the land humanity exploits for palms, crops, and oil drilling.
As with microalgae production, palm oil adoption was not achieved in a single day but through the collective effort of many players. CHITOSE in collaboration with MATSURI partners, has conceptualized and materialized multiple products made with microalgae biomass, such as cosmetics, paints, plastics, fuel, food, and more, that will soon enrich our everyday lives.
Microalgae on a Plate
In Brunei, we started our journey with a presentation from the Brunei Economic Development Board (hereinafter, BEDB), which has been supporting CHITOSE and its mission to create a microalgae industry. Brunei’s economy, long dependent on oil and gas, has made tremendous efforts to diversify in recent years, with downstream oil and gas, food, tourism, services (aviation and maritime), and information and communication technology strategically designated as priority sectors.
Spirulina, widely regarded as “super-food”, has a potential to innovate Brunei’s food industry, fulfilling an important role in the economic development of the region. Muhammad Firdaus Abdul Kadir, Senior Manager and Head of Facilitation and Coordination Office at BEDB and Fiza Rambli, Relationship Manager/Project Facilitator at BEDB, pointed out that microalgae is of special interest to Brunei, as it has an array of applications – not only in foods, but also in plastics, fuel, cosmetics, paints and more.
CHITOSE Group’s subsidiary company Chitose Algae Farm (hereinafter, CAF) serves as the hub for food-grade spirulina production in Brunei. “Food-grade” is an important keyword here, as edible spirulina must abide by multiple safety and hygiene criteria in order to classify as being safe for human consumption. In addition to this, spirulina produced at CAF, is also halal certified, as required by the local laws of Brunei. This is one of the examples of “real-life implementation” of the microalgae industry, serving as a starting point of its global development.
To the participants, who have studied about microalgae for about a year now, this was a chance to observe how spirulina is produced, from the cultivation stage to packaging and distribution, as well as what impact it has on local livelihood and economy.
The specialty of CAF is frozen raw spirulina flakes, odorless and tasteless. It is grown in both closed-type and semi-open PBRs, with the main difference being cost of production and the ease of maintenance. After that spirulina goes through machinery which instantly freezes, and packages it – the protein and microelements packed product is ready to be consumed as it is in smoothies or salads, and can also be used to add nutritious value into snacks and desserts.
To get a taste of what it will be like to introduce microalgae into our daily lives, we visited Aura by TienSing, the first vegetarian cafe in Brunei, which also took the initiative to champion CHITOSE-made spirulina in the restaurant business. There, participants were absolutely delighted to discover four different types of spirulina drinks, including a coffee drink named Butterscotch Spirucchino and another called Spirulina Palm Blend, which contains coconut cream and palm sugar syrup.
The restaurant owner, Huan Hui shared her story of creating a “new normal” of vegetarian meals in the country where meat is an essential part of the diet. The key to overcoming the challenge of public acceptance was to combine the old with the new – reinterpreting widely loved dishes in a new manner, without changing too much of the traditional flavor.
CHITOSE also hopes for a future where microalgae will seamlessly become a “new normal” in every industry, decarbonizing the world the more microalgae we use, while allowing people to maintain the same level of comfort they have been accustomed to.
Over the trip, we met many more people – researchers, government officials and local business owners, all of them eagerly dedicated to advancing the microalgae industry and the circular economy. While there are still many debates around the bioeconomy, especially concerning the costs of its implementation and “the pain” of separating from traditionally used fossil resources, the shift has already started. Just as the name CHITOSE means “a thousand years” in Japanese, we strive to create a prosperous future that will endure for generations through collective effort and the courage to lead change.
*1 Scalable flat-panel type photobioreactor system suitable for the efficient production of microalgal biomass.
*2 This is the result of NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization) “Development of Production Technologies for Biojet Fuel Project”.
https://www.nedo.go.jp/english/activities/activities_ZZJP_100127.html
*3 This is the result of an R&D project adopted by NEDO “Green Innovation Fund Project”.
https://green-innovation.nedo.go.jp/en/project/bio-manufacturing-technology/