Progress 09/15/22 to 09/14/23

Outputs
Target Audience:We have held detailed discussions and information exchanges with a range of target audiences, including growers, funders, purchasers, product developers, and eco-system service interested parties. These are ongoing andincluded: Atlantic Sea Farms Cascadia Seaweed (BC, Canada) Cawthorn Institute (NZ) Maine Aquaculture Sea-Grove Kelp Vashon Kelp Forest Pacific Sea Farms The Nature Conservancy Builders Fund DowAKSA Maritime Blue Makah Tribe Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe Alaska Fisheries Development Council Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Project worked with macroalgae farmers in several regions to enable their understanding of the results and benefits, significant ongoing interactions with several of these farmers will lead to test deployments in the near future to complement our interanl evaluations of efficacy of the overall system. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have and will continue to directly interact with others in the community, including tours of the Hood Head farm and visits to Blue Dot Sea Farms and Composite Recycling Technology Center. One presentation was given on Phase 1 results and once the refined systems are in place and data gaind from the 2023 season we will further disseminate results through presentations at technical conferences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will perform the following in the next reporting period: Refine manufacturing so we are ready to supply farms at scale. Deploy 3rd generation system at Hood Head and expand the rCF system so we collect additional productivity data. Collect growing and farm operation (labor) productivity data. Deploy small open ocean test farm in NZ for a potentially large customer. Complete the combined shellfish/macroalgae system design. Finalize the commercialization plan (well under way at this point.) Collect and evaluate real-world line strain data as a function of current and kelp loading and use to predict long-termperformance in various regions of the country. Grow-out the 3rd Generation 2023-2024 season and evaluate any potential issues in line spacing, new spreader bar designs, and new harvest/cleaning/seeding at scale. Test efficacy of the natural fiber twine for innoculation, wrapping, and hold-fast development, also test for in-situ decomposition over the growing season to determine how these materials can match up with production cycles. Evaluate other macroalgae species for multi-cropping. Develop designs for bespoke farm vessel encompassing all the improvements demonstrated to date and also over the 2023-2024 season. Look for opportunities to patent or otherwise protect IP generated in the project and also disseminate results of the SBIR efforts to the broader community.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In this Period of Performance, the following was worked on and achieved these major accomplishments: Second farm deployment of generation 2 of the rCF cable system and support interface components, improved the attachment fittings to overcome galvanic corrosion issues and eliminated all galvanized steel fitting, replacing with 316 stainless steel with isolators between fittings and carbon fiber spreader bars and lines. Designed new approach to fabricating the rCF lines for faster production and lower labor cost to further lower the overall system cost. Improved the line surface finish as a side benefit of the new approach. Remanufactured a third generation of line attachments to make deployment more rapid and improve the productivity of farm team. Redesigned and manufactured new buoy and spreader bar systemsto allow even easier harvesting, cleaning and reseeding. Deployed above as noted at the Hood Head Kelp Farm and demonstrated that yield improvements from Phase 1 SBIR were also consistently achieved during Phase 2 SBIR trials, a 6.8X factor of improvement over the parallel section of the farm that used poly-rope. Developed and implemented a new spooling system to more robustly handle long lengths of rCF line necessary to efficiently scale operations. Demonstrated a new and improved method of line cleaning that was significantly faster and easier than previous Phase 1 methods (refer to Phase 1 report - first trials were an order of magnitude less time and effort to clean than poly rope, hence this is a significant even further increase in farm labor productivity.) Procured and deployed a doppler flow sensor to collect data on the localized currents within the rCF line section of te farm. Designed and fabricated a customline strain monitoring system with data logger so we can track actual rCF line loads as a function of the current and size/density of the macroalgae throughout the growing season (data will be collected on the third trial deployment in late 2023.) This will be the first such real-world data from in-water growing systems to our knowledge and can be related back to tow-tank data and simulated kelp loading. Performed mechanical property testing (strength, modulus, failure mode)on rCF line to connectors in our Universal Testing Machine, as well as strength testing for the spreader bars. Procured samples of natural fibers for use as a sacrificial twine for seeding lines, innoculation and testing will be done in the next PoP. Interfaced with kelp farmers in Maine and Alaska to evaluate their methods of growing and deployment (anchors, buoys, etc.) to determine the feasibility of integrating into their systems. Interfaced with open-ocean macroalgae farmers in New Zealand to evaluate doing a trial system in parallel with their poly-rope systems. Began design process on third generation system to be deployed in Fall 2023, with a goal of eventually removing all metal components as these are the items providing long-term failure points with the more rigid rCF lines, as well as being more expensive than our alternatives.

Publications