###Sustainable production of value-added chemicals from renewable feedstocks using Halomonas sp. in continuous fermentation
Project ID: 2228bd1123 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Manufacturing The Future
UCL Lead department: Biochemical Engineering
Lead Supervisor: Gary Lye
Project Summary:
The majority of chemicals used industrially are derived from non-renewable, petrochemical-derived feedstocks. Current research within the industrial biotechnology area is seeking to establish fermentation-based routes to value-added chemicals production based on renewable feedstocks; for example, the carbohydrates that can be released from lignocellulosic waste streams. These fermentation processes must generally have high productivities and low operating costs in order for them to be economically viable and compete against existing petrochemical products. This project aims to establish Halomonas sp. as a low-cost production organism for industrial biotechnology. Halomonas is capable of growing under high salts conditions which means that processes can be run aseptically in non-stainless steel vessels reducing both capital and operating costs. Continuous Halomonas fermentation processes, using a range of renewable feedstocks, will be established in this project having higher productivities than the existing batch or fed-batch processes. The focus will be on multi-product fermentations involving simultaneous production of chemicals naturally produced by Halomonas sp. (i.e ectoine, a skin care product) and higher value, products synthesized as a result of Halomonas metabolic engineering (e.g. to produce mandelic acids, used as pharmaceutical precursors).
You will be working with experts in the field of microbial fermentation, scale-up and synthetic communities. You will be trained in different aspects of industrial biotechnology, microbial fermentation and metabolic engineering.
For this project, we are looking for enthusiastic individuals with background training and a degree in biochemical engineering, chemical engineering, biochemistry, biotechnology, molecular biology or related fields.