Startups lead the way in Baltic Sea by reoxygenating oceans

Paris – European scientists have teamed up with two startups in a pioneering experiment to tackle one of the major problems facing sea life – the depletion of oxygen in the ocean, causing the disappearance of fish and marine biodiversity.

Ocean deoxygenation is one of the issues on the agenda at the UN COP summit on biodiversity, opening in Columbia on Monday.

Researchers from Stockholm University in Sweden, the French industrial company, Lhyfe, and a Finnish startup Flexens are working on a pilot experiment to reoxygenate the Baltic Sea by producing hydrogen at sea.

The BOxHy project is seeking an overall solution to the asphyxiation that threatens a sea bordering nine northern European countries.

The oxygen dissolved in the oceans is essential to sustaining sea life as underwater organisms have no chance of surviving without it, scientists say.

“But for more than 50 years, its concentrations have been decreasing,” said Christophe Rabouille, a scientist at France's CNRS scientific research centre.

The loss of oxygen has two main causes, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.