MIT Sloan’s Andrés Bisonó León and MechE alumnus Luke Gray founded SOS Carbon in 2020, building a floating-barrier collection boom — an active alternative to passive deflection booms — that removed 3.5 million pounds of sargassum while employing local fishermen.

Oceanographer Elena Martínez, a 2024 Rockefeller Foundation Big Bets Fellow and SOS Biotech co-founder, pairs barrier and boom-based harvesting with fishing communities, training over 100 fishermen and removing more than 13,000 tons of sargassum across the Caribbean.

A new vessel donated by the German Embassy, the UniónSOS-01, expands SOS Carbon’s floating-boom collection array, adding 150,000 pounds of daily sargassum capacity and strengthening local jobs and coastal tourism.

DW Español highlights how young Dominican innovators created a floating barrier system that intercepts sargassum on the open sea — before it reaches the coast and decomposes, releasing toxic, foul-smelling substances. SOS Carbon collects up to 70 tons of the invasive algae daily and is researching its use as raw material for energy and agricultural…

The IDB Group’s innovation arm formalized an agreement with SOS Carbon to scale its ‘Comprehensive Sargassum’ initiative — from containment boom technology and floating barriers to valorization, community jobs and carbon-credit chains across the Caribbean.

SOS Carbon and Origin by Ocean were selected among 72 proposals from 13 countries in the IDB and USAID’s Sargassum Innovation Challenge — ranging from containment booms to biorefineries — recognized for turning the invasive seaweed into biostimulants, animal feed and cosmetics.

Developed with MIT researchers, SOS Carbon’s Littoral Collection Module works like a mobile floating barrier — a boom mounted on artisanal fishing boats — that intercepts sargassum before it reaches shore, collecting over 1,300 cubic meters in its first month in Punta Cana.

Dominican venture BlueGea brings together SOS Carbon, SOS Biotech and Fundación Terra & Marre, combining floating barriers and boom-based collection with biotechnology to convert Caribbean sargassum into raw material for agriculture, cosmetics and biomaterials — with more than 30 million kilos collected and a goal of 100 million by 2030.