Fuel Tech, a technology company providing advanced engineering for the optimization of combustion systems, emissions control, and water treatment in utility and industrial applications, released a white paper detailing a successful collaborative trial in which the company’s DGI® Dissolved Gas Infusion technology was utilized at a domestic shrimp farming facility. The paper, titled Demonstration of the Fuel Tech, Inc. Dissolved Gas Infusion (DGI®) Technology for the Royal Caridea Aquaculture Raceway, suggests that the use of DGI® to reliably dose and maintain dissolved oxygen levels can dramatically increase total production compared with traditional aeration methods.
The company believes that this report evidences the multiple potential benefits of its DGI® technology for aquaculture applications while validating the inherent flexibility of DGI® for a wide range of water and wastewater processes, environmental remediation, and industrial uses.
Shrimp farm technology provider Royal Caridea worked closely with Fuel Tech on a trial to determine the effects of growing Pacific whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) in a raceway system using the company’s patented DGI® gas infusion system. The comparative trial took place in back-to-back growth cycles on a raceway with high species stocking and low-salinity water at Royal Caridea’s aquaculture farm in Arizona.
In the first growth cycle, traditional bubble aeration using the venturi principle was used until the oxygen demand of the water could no longer be met. This required that the shrimp be partially harvested to ensure acceptable dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations were maintained for those remaining.
In the second growth cycle, Fuel Tech’s DGI® technology was used to provide DO concentrations at 150% of atmospheric saturation. This successfully unlocked the potential for more shrimp to reach maturity within the raceway, along with likely health improvements for the shrimp.
The two, three-month trials are the subject of a new white paper from Fuel Tech, which shows how its DGI® process, originally developed for the water and wastewater treatment market, offers multiple benefits in shrimp production. Fuel Tech reported that excellent survival and growth were achieved during the DGI® trial. A mean weight of 42g was reached per shrimp in about 100 days. The growth curves for individual shrimp showed no significant change from the trial when selective early harvesting was necessary to manage the high biomass loading.
The DGI® trial also revealed no evidence of trimethyl amine odor, oxidation, excessively fast metabolism, osmotic shock, or gas bubble disease. This suggests that maintaining DO levels above saturation in low-salinity water, without the presence of bubbles, increases the yield while minimizing any detrimental effects of high oxygen levels. The company concluded that high post-larval shrimp stocking, combined with reliable DO dosing with DGI®, can dramatically increase total production compared with traditional aeration methods.
The results will be presented by John M. Boyle, senior director of Technology Development at Fuel Tech, at Aquaculture America on February 21, 2024.
Bill Decker, vice president of Water and Wastewater Treatment Technologies at Fuel Tech, who will also attend Aquaculture America, commented, “We believe that the trials in collaboration with Royal Caridea show huge benefits in deploying DGI® for oxygen injection in aquaculture applications. Demand for shrimp is increasing globally and shrimp farming is an important source to help meet the growing demand and reduce overfishing of the marine environment. By deploying DGI®, producers now have an opportunity to improve stock health and yields, while achieving more efficient operations.”
DGI® uses a patented next-generation, pressurized saturator for gas transfer of the oxygen solution to a slipstream of water; and an innovative nozzle delivery system to distribute oxygenated water that virtually eliminates gas loss from a targeted body of water.
Download the white paper here.
