Description
Industrial biotechnology, particularly industrial fermentation, is thriving worldwide. Novel techniques, such as synthetic biology, provide new products that could not be foreseen a few years ago. Because synthetic biotechnology is so recent, and principally because new genetic modified organisms (GMOs) are continuously being developed and used in industrial fermentation for the obtention of specific products, the composition of the resulting spent fractions is generally unknown. However, these fractions are rich in nutrients, and furthermore, it is expected that interesting and unexpected metabolites and compounds (peptides, amino acids, volatiles, etc.), with potential applications in different areas, are produced parallelly to the desired product by the distinct GMOs.Therefore, the present project aims at valorising synthetic industrial fermentation spent broths aqueous phase (SBAP), produced by Amyris Inc. This will be achieved by: initially fully characterising different SBAPs and identifying potential commertially interesting compounds (Task 1); fractionating the SBAPs apllying several techniques of separation for the obtention of different fractions/extracts (Tasks 2 to 5) always aiming at green processes, minimising solvent/materials consumption and maximising their recovery and re-use (Task 6); and characterising all the obtained fractions/extracts in terms of composition (Task 1), functional (Task 7) and bioactive properties (Task 8).
The results obtained by the proposed project are expected to have a signifficant impact on synthetic biotechnology’s sustainability and circular economy, forwarding towards an integrated biorefinery concept in the field.
| Period | 2020 → … |
|---|---|
| Degree of Recognition | PhD |