Biorefinery conversions
The purpose of the Biorefinery Conversions research at AT CERE is to create new knowledge for development of innovative and cost-efficient processes for production of fuels, chemicals and materials from biomasses, industrial effluents and industrial off-gases including carbon dioxide.
Valorization of renewable resources, i.e. residual biomasses, as well as undesirable by-products of industrial activities such as liquid and solid effluents, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, as feedstocks for production of valuable organic molecules can greatly contribute to sustainable societies and limit greenhouse gases emissions.
Research within Biorefinery Conversions contributes to the above by:
- Harnessing the potential of microbial metabolism and microbial synergy and interactions by developing processes based on mixed microbial consortia and/or defined microbial co-cultures
- Applying thermodynamics as a tool to design microbial enrichments and to direct bioprocesses towards formation of the desired products in mono- and co-cultures as well as mixed microbial consortia
- Harnessing the potential of mixed microbial consortia by optimizing the selection and enrichment process as well as the fermentation operating strategy
- Providing knowledge on bioconversion kinetics to be applied for process modeling and optimization
- Developing innovative process concepts for enhancing the bioconversion efficiency and improving the economics by applying cost-efficient pretreatment methods and membrane-based downstream processing
- Designing and experimentally evaluating novel combined bioenergy and biorefinery concepts