About Lemna.• Duckweed (Lemnaceae) is a small floating macrophyte

• 4 genus (Lemna, Landoltia, Spirodela and Wolffia) and 40 known species

• Duckweed naturally grows in river banks or lakes but it is also been used for

wastewater phytoremediation through lagoons or raceway systems

• Capacity to duplicate weight in 16 h-2 days

• High productivity per surface (see table).

• High absortion capacity N and P: 2 and 0.5 ton·ha-1·year-1

• Biomass composition rich in proteins 22.5-29.3 %, carbohydrates 10-32.5 % and

lipids 8.7-11.2 %. Suitable for many biobased products

Duckweed technology for improvingnutrient management and resourceefficiency in pig production systems

Life LEMNA aims to reduce manure nutrient pollution of water bodies in

farming areas, improve resource efficiency and close the mineral cycle.

A 250 m2 duckweed-based cultivation system will be designed and built to

daily treat about 3.000L of digestate and produce >35 kg of duckweed biomass.

A biogas plant located in a pig farm will be the project site for demo trials.

The duckweed biomass will be used as a feedstock for producing a

biofertiliser and feed which will be evaluated.

Objectives and scope:

Appenroth K. A., Sree K. S., Böhm V., Hammann S., Vetter W., Leiterer M., Jahreis G. (2017). Nutritional value of duckweeds (Lemnaceae) as human food. Food Chemistry. 217 pp. 266-273.

Mohedano R. A., Costa R. H. R., Tavares F. A., Belli P. (2012). High nutrient removal rate from swine wastes and protein biomass production by full-scale duckweed ponds. Bioresource

Technology. 112, pp. 98-104.

Xu J., Shen G. (2011a). Growing duckweed in swine wastewater for nutrient recovery and biomass production. Bioresource Technology. 102, pp. 848-853.

www.life-lemna.eu/ Farm

Biogasplant

Duckweedproduction

Biofertilizerproduction

Cropfarming

Animal feed

production

LIFE 2015 Agreement Number LIFE15 ENV/ES/000382

Lemna project is being developed under the support of the Life

Programme of the European Commission

Duckweed for nutrient recoveryand/or biomass production

Potential applications of duckweed biomass

Foreseen results

Pioneer prototype in the EU for duckweed cultivation on digestate.

A collection of 25 duckweed strains will be developed.

95-100% nutrient (N and P) recovery efficiency rates treating

anaerobically digested pig manure

Validation of new duckweed biobased products: feed /biofertiliser

Carbon fooprint reduction of animal production.

e-LEMNATOOL for system replication in other EU farms.

ainia´s technical resources and know-how

Manure

Thermal use

of biogas

Digestate

liquid fraction

Digestate

solid

fraction

Biofertilizers soil

amendments

Animal feed

Vegetable raw

materials

Food, pharma,

cosmeticIngredients and

additives to

innovative products

Animal feedHigh quality

protein for fish

and other farm

animals

Biobased

chemicalsCheap and

sustainable sugars

for bioprocesses

BiofuelsBiocarbon,

bioetanol, biogas

BiofertilisersAminoacids and

other bioestimulants

to liquid biofertilisers

BiomaterialsBioplastics,

biocomposites

and other

biomaterials

• Laboratory (1 L) and pilot scale duckweed (50-200L) cultivation systems

• Know-how on duckweed cultivation including initiation, cultivation and harvesting

• Process control by light, pH, COD, morphology and other parameters

Experience

Duckweedmorphology study

Lab scale optimizationcultivation

1 L biorreactor for labscale cultivation

50 L outdoorcultivation

200 L racewaycultivation

Beneficiaries

AINIA, CNB-CSIC, Ecobiogas

Duration

3 years, 2016-2019

Species Production MT

DM/ha/year

Protein %

DM

Protein

yield

MT/ha/year

Duckweed 12-16 16-45 1.9-7.2

Water

hyacinth

24-32 12-35 2.9-8

Homwort 10 20 2

Cattail 32 10-14 3.2-4.5

Algae 8 50 4

Small Scale Biorefining, 2016. Wageningen University & Research