Since 2011, enormous seaweed blooms have spread across the Atlantic Ocean, spanning over 5,000 miles from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.

Known as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, the leviathan — visible from space — has wreaked havoc on environments and economies throughout the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, where unprecedented quantities of seaweed routinely break away from the mat, wash ashore, and decay. In 2018 alone, attempts to clean up the errant seaweed from beaches across the Caribbean Sea totaled around $120 million.

A research team led by Princeton University aims to reimagine Sargassum — the culprit behind the massive blooms — from an economic and environmental burden into a boon. Armed with a grant from Schmidt Sciences and the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research, researchers from eight institutions and an industry partner will develop technologies to transform the seaweed into a feedstock of the future, capable of producing valuable materials including fuels, chemicals, fertilizers, and other products.

“Much like how petroleum is converted into different fuels and petrochemicals in an oil refinery, we hope to develop a ‘biorefinery’ to transform Sargassum into several sustainable products used in everyday life,” said lead investigator José Avalos, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering. “We have the opportunity to turn something that’s been an economic and environmental disaster into a long-lasting, sustainable solution.”