The beginning

But there was a challenge ahead: almost all publications were limited to laboratory experiments, and we, as industrial engineers, wanted to know if it would be possible to produce microalgae on an industrial scale. So we decided to build a pilot plant—a small structure equipped with industrial-scale systems.

The project advanced with the support of the University of the Azores, with Dr. Maria Helena Pereira da Silva as an investor, and later, the Regional Directorate of Science and Technology. Thus, Algicel was born in 2006. Between 2007 and 2011, we conducted intensive research that culminated in the first patents registered by Azoreans.

At the time, I was the Director of Production, Maintenance, Quality, and Logistics at an agribusiness, where Gonçalo worked as my assistant. At the same time, Gonçalo, Emanuel Xavier—a biologist fully dedicated to the project—and I managed the small pilot plant, dedicating our after-hours and weekends to it. These were years of hard work, relentless study, and frustration. But also moments of gratification whenever we managed to solve a problem—as if, amidst so many difficulties, we were receiving small rewards that motivated us to continue.

I remember a conversation with Professor Vítor Gonçalves about a specific microalgae, Haematococcus pluvialis. I asked if he had ever seen it in the Azores, and to my surprise, he said he had—interestingly, in an old, abandoned refrigerator in a pasture on Santa Maria Island, used as a water reservoir for the animals. While it was an intriguing story, the idea of ​​searching for microalgae in an abandoned refrigerator seemed absurd to me, and I dismissed it. Interestingly, some time later, one of the company's technicians jokingly mentioned that he had microalgae in his backyard. The idea stuck with me, and a few days later, I suggested to Emanuel that he go check it out. We agreed that if we didn't find anything, we would go for a beer in Santo Antônio, where Luís lived, and that way the trip wouldn't be in vain.

To our surprise, in Luís's backyard there was an old, rusty wheelbarrow with a puddle of completely red water inside. We took a sample and immediately went to the university laboratory. And, sure enough, it was Haematococcus pluvialis.

Later, we found the same strain in other water sources. For almost a year, Emanuel dedicated himself to isolating the strain and developing a pure culture, from which we now produce astaxanthin on a large scale. In the following years, he specialized in microalgae, completing his master's and doctorate, and discovered that this Azorean strain was more productive than others from other regions.

As is typical at the beginning of any project, we made many mistakes. I remember a particularly frustrating phase when we inoculated photobioreactors with Haematococcus pluvialis to induce astaxanthin production, but the culture insisted on remaining green. We spent months rereading scientific publications and repeating experiments until we realized the problem lay in the quality of the injected air. This discovery led us to invest in air purification systems, and it was only then that we began to actually produce astaxanthin. It was a constant process of trial and error, where the solution always seemed close, but just out of reach.

Other challenges further complicated the process: we tried to increase productivity by adjusting the air velocity and CO2 concentration, but these changes brought new complications. Sometimes the culture was invaded by other microalgae, and other times it died due to an unbalanced pH. The microalgae required a delicate balance and an initial phase with little sunlight—and only when we figured this out were we finally able to stabilize the process. It was as if the microalgae were teaching us that you can't rush nature.