Project Purpose and Background

Team

Galdieria Inc. and Leave a Nest Co., Ltd.

Challenge

Industrial wastewater from food, sugar, distillery, and textile factories contains organic matter such as sugars, starches, fats, and proteins. Although these substances are treated as pollutants that must be removed, they are also carbon and nutrient sources that can support biological production. If these substances can be redirected into the production of organisms instead of simply purifying and discarding the wastewater, wastewater treatment can become the starting point for a new resource cycle.

Vision

We will build a system that uses Galdieria, a microalga capable of growing in harsh environments, to cultivate algae using organic matter contained in industrial wastewater. By using the cultivated Galdieria as a raw material for precious-metal recovery and other valuable substances, we aim to move from wastewater treatment to resource production through water and establish a new circular industrial model that integrates water treatment and resource recovery.

Implementation

We will use India and Southeast Asia as fields for this project and verify Galdieria cultivation using industrial wastewater, together with subsequent resource utilization, as one integrated system.

1. Finding partners with industrial wastewater

We will explore companies with wastewater suitable for Galdieria cultivation, focusing on Southeast Asia and southern India.

Potential sectors include distilleries, sugar mills, fruit-juice processing, cocoa processing, palm-oil mills, dairy processing, pulp and paper, and textile dyeing.

We will assess wastewater characteristics, volumes, and existing treatment methods to select fields suitable for demonstration.

2. Validating Galdieria cultivation using wastewater

Using wastewater from candidate sites, we will assess the feasibility of cultivating Galdieria.

Galdieria is a microalga that can grow in strongly acidic and high-temperature environments and can grow through both autotrophic and heterotrophic nutrition.

We will explore conditions that enable water-quality improvement and biomass production at the same time while using organic matter in wastewater as a cultivation resource.

3. Building a cultivation and demonstration framework in Asia

We will collaborate with universities and research institutions in India, Malaysia, and the Philippines to establish demonstration sites where Galdieria can be cultivated and evaluated.

Taking into account wastewater transport methods, national regulations, research facilities, and the potential for collaboration with local partners, we will develop a framework that enables continuous demonstration in each region.

4. Using cultivated Galdieria as a resource

Rather than discarding Galdieria produced through wastewater treatment, we will use it as a raw material for downstream industries.

The surface of Galdieria cells can adsorb precious metals such as gold and palladium, and applications for recovering precious metals from dilute waste liquids are being advanced.

The cells also contain valuable substances such as proteins, glycogen, phycocyanin, and coproporphyrin, with potential applications in food, materials, and research.

By connecting a single biomass to multiple uses, we aim to transform wastewater treatment itself into a value-creating business.

Future Development and Scale-up

Building a business model for wastewater treatment, algae cultivation, and resource recovery

We will redefine wastewater not as a treatment cost but as a resource for producing algae.

We will connect businesses that generate industrial wastewater, algae cultivation sites, precious-metal recyclers, and companies that use valuable substances to build a circular model:
“Wastewater → Galdieria → resource recovery and product development.”
We will evaluate business feasibility based not only on lower water-treatment costs but also on the value generated by recovered resources and biomass, and package the model for implementation.

Expansion from Asia to the world

We will first establish demonstration models in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other regions with different industrial wastewater characteristics and business environments.

By accumulating cultivation conditions, operating methods, economic assessments, and collaboration models with local partners, we will expand the approach to industries that generate wastewater, including food, agriculture, textiles, and resource recycling.

Ultimately, we aim to shift from an industrial structure that “uses water and discards it” to one that circulates materials through water and creates new resources.