Aquaculture is the world’s fastest growing food production sector (CAGR, 6%), having exceeded, since 2014, more than 50% of the global seafood supply. To support this growth the industry needs to urgently find innovative solutions to production challenges, such as sustainability, disease, lack of space for expansion, and limited freshwater availability. Recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) mitigate many of these issues, since they are designed to control culture conditions for intensive farming, while increasing biosecurity levels, minimizing water consumption, and managing waste streams. Clearly, a shift from open farming to a sustainable land-based aquaculture, is happening now.  

In Portugal, only two companies (both our partners), are operating with RAS. As so, more is needed in Portugal, to further advance this production sector.  RAS themselves are stimulating demand for technology innovation in areas like aqua tech. Still, there are no real-time sensors for the quantification of highly toxic nitrogen compounds (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) that can accumulate in close systems. 

So, the main goal of NOxAqua project is the development of innovative sensors to quantify such compounds, using a technological platform (electrochemical biosensors). Our first product will be a portable nitrite biosensor - the NO2Aqua - that will be launched on the market by the end of the project (TRL 9).  Our second product will be a standalone device that is able to monitor the three N-nutrients in real-time, the NOxAqua. A prototype of an automated sampling system specifically designed to integrate and connect the sensors to the tanks will be developed, fulfilling the specific needs of the RAS industry (both products will reach TRL 6 by the end of the project). 

Our Portuguese (FLATLANTIC and RIASEARCH) and Norwegian (NIVA and RASLab) partners will play a fundament role in validating/demonstrating/ prove the technology in operational environments, thereby strengthening the scientific and technological relationships between the two States. 

Ultimately, we will be able to create products of high value for the Blue Growth sector (willingness to pay was confirmed through a recent market study), thereby fostering the innovation and business development, and levering the competitiveness and sustainability of Portuguese SMEs.