Making crude oil from seaweed

A startup uses proprietary automation to develop a large-scale feedstock of seaweed, which has the potential to replace fossil fuels in applications ranging from transportation to agriculture. It is now attempting to produce biofuels and bioplastics.

A Bengaluru-based startup launched by a biotechnology research veteran from Biocon and three engineering graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras is contributing to the solution by farming the ocean. Sea6 Energy is developing a large-scale sustainable alternative feedstock of seaweed, which can potentially replace everything that we do today with crude oil.

 In the past 13 years since the startup was founded, it has been working on two broad areas: First, large-scale seaweed production by developing automation, and second, converting this seaweed into useful products that have applications across various sectors.

 Sea6 Energy is exploring the possibility of making crude oil from seaweed. Growing seaweed—which absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows, transforming it into biomass—is traditionally a labour-intensive process restricted to shallow waters, which makes it cost-ineffective. Sea6 has been inventing and scaling up machinery to counter these issues. It has a patent on a seaweed farming system, which includes a tractor that automates the process of seaweed seeding and harvesting. There are also large-scale girds that float on the ocean surface, which can withstand rough waves on which seaweed can be grown.

 The first product made from seaweed that they have commercialised is a proprietary bio-stimulant, an extract, when sprayed in a small amount on a crop—like rice, maize, sugarcane, what have you—can drive the yield up by 10 to 30 percent depending on the crop that’s grown, the inputs (fertilisers, irrigation) etc provided and the condition in which it is grown. “This is not a fertiliser by itself, but it improves the efficiency of how plants capture sunlight and use nutrients,” says Suryanarayan. “This means, effectively, we have found a way to produce more food from the same land mass and, therefore, improve our food security.”

Sea6 has a global patent on this product, which is exported to the US, Europe, Latin America, Japan and other countries in Southeast Asia. These bio-stimulants are manufactured both in India and Indonesia, though the bulk of the seaweed farming is done in the latter where Sea6 has a fully owned subsidiary because of the advanced maritime zoning and leasing regulations.

Sea6 is on track to earn about $10 million this financial year largely on the back of the bio-stimulant. The company is working on how to make crude oil or fuel from seaweed, and have also published a scientific paper with IIT-Madras last year detailing how this could be possible. The startup, according to Tracxn, has raised a total funding of $39.4 million from investors, including Tata Capital, BASF, Aqua Spark and Silverstrand, apart from a handful of angel investors, including Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. The Series B fundraise, which got in around $18.5 million, came in July 2022.