Award details

Biodegradable bacterial plastics from cereals

Reference	BBS/E/F/00041648
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Clare Mills
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Quadram Institute Bioscience
Department	Quadram Institute Bioscience Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	42,822
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/09/2003
End date	31/08/2006
Duration	36 months

Abstract

The overall aim of this project is to develop a sustainable processing route for the manufacture of biodegradable bacterial poly-beta-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) from a major renewable resource at reduced cost. The objectives are: (1) to develop a progressive debranning technique to harvest cereal botanical components for the extraction of valuable materials; (2) to elucidate the effects of primary processing and component isolation on subsequent bioconversion; (3) to introduce a step-change in bioprocessing technology where the combined enzymatic capability of a fungal consortium can be exploited for the simultaneous hydrolyses of all major macro-molecules in cereal grains; (4) to develop a novel process based on cell autolysis for the regeneration of nutrients from fungal biomass; (5) to demonstrate effective production of PHB in two successive continuous systems using the mixtures of the cereal hydrolysate and fungal autolysate as the sole nutrient source; and (6) to simplify the separation of intracellular PHB by exploiting the lytic activity from the fungal consortium. Overall, the project will establish the superior economic and environmental sustainability of the proposed processing route over current processes for PHB production.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

I accept the terms and conditions of use (opens in new window)

export PDF file

back to list new search