Sistema Hiperbárico para Recolha e Manutenção de Organismos do Mar Profundo

Deep sea research, due to the harsh environment, has been barely explored although contains a huge potential of economic exploitation of bio-resources due to the organisms and substances that can be found in these regions. The substances contained or produced by deep-sea organisms have interest due to the potential application in pharmaceutical and food industry. In spite of the great potential, it had been scarcely explored due to the high costs of production. The project herein presented aims to develop an isobaric mobile infrastructure able to collect deepsea live organisms under conditions of high pressure, low temperature (or extremely high in the case of proximity to active volcanoes) and low luminosity. This mobile structure shall be able to transfer the living organisms to another chamber, mimicking at surface (1bar), the environment of the sea floor without modification of the relevant physical parameters. The system will also allow the maintenance of these organisms in controlled and easily accessible environments for scientific research purposes and to allow the use of the substances produced by them for the pharmaceutical industry.