Recently we hosted Dr. Vincenzo Zonno (Università del Salento, Unisalento, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies (DiSTeBA), who has been engaged as a valued expert advisor to ABT in the areas of sludge and waste water management for aquaculture in the Sea2Land Project, having been the coordinator of AQUAGRIS project and partner in AQUATREAT. He has also supported the Sea2Land SEA2LAND | Producing advanced bio-based fertilizers from fisheries wastes project by supplying seabass and bream sludge from land-based aquaculture production in Italy. The highlight of the visit was his expert talk and workshop on the treatment and valorisation of aquaculture sludge delivered to 13 researchers, engineers and consultants from the AquaBioTech Group team.
On Tuesday, the 18th of October, Dr. Zonno arrived in Malta and we kicked off the visit with a welcome coffee as well as a tour of our Recirculating Aquaculture facility ABTInnovia and our design and engineering department, following a lunch with our R&D&I team director Tamás Bardócz. Later in the day an official opening meeting was held followed by a presentation of the company.
The next day, Wednesday 19th, a pre-project meeting for BIORAS_Shrimp was held with Dr. Zonno, R&D&I Technician Jui-Che Chiang (Rex), Aquaculture Shrimp Trial Coordinator Karin Kurkjian, R&D&I Project Coordinator Ines Boujmil, RAS Design Installations and Commissioning team member Tamas Eisenbeck and Tamás Bardócz, followed by a visit and tour to the Malta Aquaculture Research Centre at Fort San Luċjan, the location of our colleagues from the Malta Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture and host research site in the BIORAS_Shrimp project.
Thursday the 20th started with the Sea2Land expert workshop held by Dr. Zonno on waste collection, concentration and reuse, which was very well received and generated many questions and discussion. ABTG Aquaculture Consultant Thanasis Chantzaropoulos then held a presentation of the upcoming trial plan for Sea2Land ozone waste flocculation research, and received interesting feedback from our expert guest. The visit concluded with a tour of local attractions in Malta.
Dr. Vincezo Zonno has had long-term collaboration with AquaBioTech Group and we will continue this relationship through collaborative research in the BIORAS_Shrimp project. This project starts in November and Dr. Zonno is its coordinator. AquaBioTech Group will be supporting of building a wastewater treatment system with knowledge provided by Dr Zonno. The system will be connected to a shrimp clear-water RAS. The treated wastewater or sludge might be utilized for growing biofloc or other uses. We are happy that we had the opportunity to host Dr. Zonno and look forward to many more research opportunities together.
