In the Algarve coast there are several candidate seaweed species for commercialization with little to no available information into specific production techniques, and currently work in being developed for different aspects of seaweed production of selected species. The student can integrate the planned research in 1 or 2 seaweed production trials.
In case of land-based production, focus will in IMTA systems, where seaweed production is integrated with that of fish for nutrients bioremediation. While in case of offshore production focus will be on investigating reproduction in laboratory conditions and optimization to obtain biomass for offshore seaweed rope cultivation.
Tasks to be performed include, algae collection and processing, experimental set up preparation and manutention, recording of environmental parameters, algae survival and growth assessment, water nutrients sampling, preparation of algae samples for composition analysis.