RAS is a rare example of sustainable industrialized farming. This makes RAS a potential key player in solving the increasing demand for food as the world’s population rises to a projected 9 billion people by around year 2050. Notably, an absolute and relative rise in the demand for protein will accompany the expanded human population. This could create a sustainability disaster if the “protein gap” is to be filled by increased production of livestock in conventional farming.
Improvements made to RAS may increase its adoption rate and therefore its contribution to solving the world food crisis in a sustainable way. One way to potentially improve RAS substantially is by lining the fish tanks with an effective antimicrobial coating or by implementing a large-scale CDI during purging.
Functioning anti-biofilm coatings could reduce the microbial generation of GSM and MIB in RAS water and thereby lessen the requirement for purging. If purging is eliminated entirely, the market weight of RAS fish may increase by up to 20 % and the turnover rate of fish in production might increase. Additionally, a decrease in purging time will reduce wastewater efflux and therefore lessen environmental load.
A full-scale CDI implemented into RAS may reduce the requirement for purging and therefore improve the depuration process. This would benefit the production of fish and reduce the outlet of waste water.
Image credit: Rasmus Juul Jensen
