Research yields effective process of collagen production from jellyfish

With the support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the Institute of Marine Resources and Environment conducted a study of enzyme application technology in collagen production from jellyfish.

According to the research team, Vietnam has millions of tonnes of jellyfish and the exploitation capacity is estimated at hundreds of thousands of tonnes per year. However, the jellyfish are only processed manually according to traditional methods, and most of the processed products are directed at domestic consumption and export with very low economic value.

“Therefore, finding a processing technology to improve usage and economic value of Vietnam's jellyfish resources is very necessary,” a representative of the research team emphasized. Collagen from marine resources has been recognized as having more advantages, such as high safety, low risk of disease transmission, and high extraction output than other raw materials.

“Currently, there are few research works on collagen extraction from jellyfish. The application of enzyme technology promises many advantages such as high recovery efficiency, increased product quality, fewer by-products, and reduced pollution,” he added.

So far, the project has built a technological process to extract collagen from Vietnamese jellyfish on a scale of 1,000kg of raw materials per batch; produced a total of 522kg of collagen powder with purity of 82.6 to 83.7 percent, ensuring safety and meeting quality standards as prescribed by the Ministry of Health.

It also produced a total of 75,000 collagen-containing functional food capsules (with 200 mg or more in each capsule), created a basic profile of the standard and quality of jellyfish ingredients, collagen jelly powder products and CollaJell functional food capsules.

The economic efficiency of collagen production from jellyfish has also been calculated and evaluated. “At a capacity of 5,000kg of raw materials per batch, eight batches a day on the production line of Vinh Hoan Collagen Co, Ltd's factory, total revenue exceeds VND1.141 trillion and VND623.387 billion in annual profit,” the representative of the research team said.

In order to perfect the technologies and equipment and apply the research results, the team seeks improved technology and equipment on an industrial scale to increase production efficiency, reduce costs, and build many production facilities in order to make full use of the huge jellyfish sources in ​​Vietnam’s waters. The team also seeks to continue research, diversify secondary products using jellyfish collagen and commercialize these products.

Source VEN