The Algal Innovation Centre

The Algal Innovation Centre (AIC) at the University of Cambridge is now open for academic and industrial research collaborations.

Bridge Greenhouses were delighted to be a part of the new AIC official opening ceremony.

Bridge supplied and installed the glasshouse, shade screens/insect netting, air circulation fans and environmental control system, for this unique UK facility.

 “The quality of the greenhouse is ideal for the sorts of controlled environment experiments that researchers will be doing in the facility” said Professor Alison Smith, Director of the AIC. “Bridge Greenhouses listened to our requirements and offered excellent guidance”.

The Algal Innovation Centre will address the requirement for scale-up and pilot facilities to enable translation of fundamental research and showcase technologies.

It will connect the entire pipeline of algal research from strain selection and improvement, through harvesting and processing, to development of underpinning technology/engineering solutions.

The AIC will also meet a wider UK need; as a result of a national consultation, the Department of Energy Climate Change has identified a need for an Algal Centre of Excellence with test and scale-up facilities.

The AIC is a secure GM grade research glasshouse on a sealed foundation with a gross floor area of 164m². It has laboratory grade benching, RO water supply, environmental data collection, access to autoclaving, centrifugation, 10L and 150L algae reactors.

There are opportunities for collaborations for reactor and harvesting testing, strain and trait selection and resilience at pilot scale.

The AIC was funded by the School of Biological Sciences, and the European Regional Development Fund project, EnAlgae, and is located at the Algal Innovation Centre Glasshouse, University of Cambridge Botanic Garden, Bateman Street, Cambridge, CB2 1JF