Download Abstracts Table Industrial Uses of Bacteria

Industrial Uses of Bacteria
19 May 2010 - IOM3, London
From 09.00
Registration and coffee
09.30
Chairman’s Welcome and Introduction: Dr Chris J Hewitt, Professor of Biological Engineering,
Loughborough University
09.40
Session 1
09.40 Microbial Biofuels in Perspective
Professor Martin Tangney, Director, Biofuel
Research Centre, Edinburgh Napier University
10.10 Learning From Purple Photosynthetic
Bacteria How To Convert Solar Energy Into
Fuels
Professor Richard Cogdell, Glasgow Biomedical
Research Centre, University of Glasgow
10.35 Farming Marine Microalgae: the Next
Agricultural Revolution
Professor Grant Burgess, Professor of Marine
Biotechnology, Newcastle University
11.00
Refreshments
11.25
Session 2
11.25 Biohydrogen Production and Precious
Metal Recovery for Fuel Cells
Dr Mark Redwood, Unit of Functional
Bionanomaterials, School of Biosciences,
University of Birmingham
Our seas are by far the most diverse environment on the planet, with thirty
two of the thirty three known phyla occurring in the sea, whereas, only one
phylum is specific to land. The marine environment also remains the least
explored, and this, combined with the high chemical diversity which exists
in marine organisms, increases the likelihood of finding new materials and
compounds which may be useful to mankind. Our work has focussed on
marine microbial ecology and how an understanding of marine microbes
can be industrially and environmentally useful. Photosynthesis is the most
effective carbon capture and storage system known to man and we wish to
use photosynthesis to contribute to the removal of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere in a profitable way. We are growing marine microalgae and
diatoms for conversion of carbon dioxide into long chain carbon molecules
useful as non petroleum based chemical streams of the future. A diatom
Phaeodactylum tricornutum was isolated from the Newcastle coast, and is
particularly resistant to growth at low temperatures. This “Geordie” strain
has been grown in outdoor tanks throughout the winter months. We are
optimising growth and lipid production in open tanks to develop low cost
production systems based in the UK and which use heated seawater
available from coastal power stations to allow growth year round. Good
productivity and sustained growth indicates that such farming can be
carried out in the UK giving excellent annual productivities compared with
traditional agriculture. The economic hurdles of cheap harvesting and
drying are also being addressed. Strains rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids
are also being targeted due to the demand for these nutraceuticals and in
order to reduce our dependency on fish from which they are currently
extracted.
The unit of functional bionanomaterials (UFB) works on a variety of themes
in the field of applied microbiology. We present on two closely aligned
areas –fuel cell catalysis and biological hydrogen production. ‘BioH2’ can
provide clean, renewable energy from abundant organic wastes, when
converted to electricity with high efficiency using fuel cells. However, fuel
cell production costs are high due to the requirement for precious metal
catalysts. Fortunately, bacterial cells are available in excess from BioH2
production and have proved useful in fuel cell construction. Postfermentation cells facilitated the recovery of these catalytic precious metals
from waste streams (such as electronic scrap), generating metallised cells
coated in stable nanoparticles with useful catalytic properties. To date,
these ‘bioinorganic catalysts’ have proven active in fuel cells and shown
superior activity and/or selectivity in several reactions of industrial
significance, including the Heck reaction (palladium-coated bacterial cells or
bioPd(0)) and the selective oxidation of glycerol to glyceric acid (goldcoated bacterial cells - bioAu(0)). Present research focuses on
understanding the nature of the exceptional activity of this new class of
catalysts by investigating the interactions between the bacterial support and
the metallic nanoparticles using various metal-tolerant strains. In parallel,
we investigated BioH2 fermentation using locally sourced food wastes. Our
approach is to combine dark fermentation and photofermentation for
maximum efficiency and augmentation by solar energy. We describe the
evaluation of local food wastes as process feedstocks , the development of
a novel ‘electrofermentation’ technique and the influence of regional
sunlight patterns on photofermentation.
11.55 Microbially Enhanced Oil Recovery
Professor Adel Sharif, Director, Centre for
Osmosis Research & Applications, University of
Surrey
12.20 Expanded Bed Technology for High-rate
Bioprocesses
Dr Mike Dempsey, School of Biology, Chemistry
and Health Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan
University
12.45
Lunch
13.45
Session 3
Expanded bed technology is a generic method for process intensification
that retains a high concentration of active biomass by immobilization as a
biofilm on small (1 mm) support particles. By using particles of this size, a
large surface area is available for colonisation by process microbes. The
biofilm-coated particles are fluidized by up-flowing liquid and the bed
expands, resulting in a biofilm surface area of about 2,800 m2/m3 and a
biomass concentration of up to 40 kg/m 3, based on the expanded bed
volume. Biofilms may be composed of pure cultures or mixed populations,
and the reactor can be operated aerobically or anaerobically, depending on
the process. Furthermore, by retaining the cells as an attached biofilm, the
process liquid carries a low concentration of cells out of the reactor, thus
making downstream processing easier.
Ultimately, this method of process intensification results in low-cost, highrate operations; and the technology can be applied to fermentation,
biocatalysis, or biological treatment of water and wastewater. The
presentation will include example applications in fermentation (production of
ethanol, enzymes, and antibiotics) and wastewater treatment (nitrification).
It will also include applications using unicellular and mycelial bacteria
(actinomycetes). The talk will be illustrated by video clips of expanded bed
bioreactors in operation.
Bioremediation: Utilising Microorganisms to Remediate Past
Industrial Contamination
13.45 Land Bioremediation and
Bionanotechnology
Dr Russell Thomas, Parsons Brinckerhoff and
Professor Jon Lloyd, School of Earth,
Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences,
University of Manchester
14.25 Industrial Use of Microorganisms to
Make 10s of 1000s of Tonnes of Enzyme
Products Each Year
Dr Stuart Stocks, Novozymes A/S, Denmark:
www.novozymes.com
There are many explanations of bioremediation. One of the most regularly
quoted, was defined by the American Academy of Microbiology as 'the use
of living organisms to reduce or eliminate environmental hazards resulting
from accumulations of toxic chemicals or other hazardous wastes‘. This can
otherwise be defined more simply as ‘harnessing biological processes to
attenuate risk from hazardous substances’. The key point as with any
biotechnological process, is that a biological process is being exploited, in
this case for breaking down or accumulating contaminants. Most
bioremediation processes utilise and enhance naturally occurring
processes, especially with the most commonly used techniques such as
landfarming, biopiles and composting. These processes generally take
advantage of microorganisms which have evolved on contaminated sites to
utilise complex hydrocarbons such as phenols, polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons and petroleum hydrocarbons. This presentation will give an
insight into the various applications of microorganisms for bioremediation
processes.
Bionanomineralogy: Engineering Functional Materials for the
Remediation of Metals and Organics
The microbial reduction of Fe(III) minerals plays a critical role in controlling
the mobility of both inorganic and organic species in the subsurface and
offers the basis for flexible and robust bioremediation processes. The
nature of the Fe(II)-bearing mineral phase formed is especially important in
mediating “indirect” reductive transformations of xenobiotic organics and
redox active toxic metals and radionuclides during contaminant clean up.
We have used a range of approaches to optimise bioproduction of the
Fe(II)-bearing mineral phase for reductive transformations of organic and
inorganic substrates. These include the selection of the optimal Fe(III)mineral phase for conversion to highly reactive nano-scale biomagnetite,
and the incorporation of highly reactive transition metals into or onto the
post-reduction mineral. The molecular-scale characterization of the
resulting functional bionanominerals using techniques including high
resultion TEM, XPS, Mossbauer spectroscopy, XAS and XMCD will be
described as well as their use in the detoxification of model organic
contaminants, metals such as Cr(VI) and radionculides including
Tc(VII). Experiments conducted in batch contactors and sediment columns
confirm that the optimised biomineral phases can be used effectively for
both in situ and ex situ remediation of a broad-range of contaminants.
Novozymes A/S is the largest producer of food, feed or technical enzymes
world wide, producing tens of thousands of tons of solid or liquid enzyme
preparations each year. The enzyme sector is highly competitive and
mature, yet continues to grow with new applications and challenges
emerging constantly. The bulk of these enzymes are currently used to
degrade starch in manufacture of sugar syrups, in washing powders for
domestic and industrial use, and more recently in the production of
BioEthanol from starch. Most recently, and most challenging, enzymes are
exploited to make ethanol from cellulosic sources. Enzymes are able to
catalyze chemical modifications of almost any organic molecule or surface,
and can even catalyse a range on inorganic reactions. Therefore there are
also products aimed at leather, brewing, juice and paper production, the
range expands continuously as more and more creative and innovative
applications are found.
At present, the ONLY way to make enzymes at prices conducive to
business in these sectors is through biological means, i.e. though
fermentation technology. Here a microorganism that either naturally
produces the desired enzymes or has been genetically modified to do so, is
grown in a bioreactor (sometimes at scales of up to 160m 3), and the
resulting enzymes harvested. The nature of this biological process means
that enzyme production is considered as a sustainable proposition. Further
to this, use of enzymes instead of other traditional chemical methods is
often beneficial because reactions typically occur at close to ambient
temperatures and pressures (low carbon foot print) and produce waste
material that is biologically degradable (less toxic).
The presentation will contain some back ground to how the microorganisms
are currently used at novozymes, and some of the applications of enzymes
which might be interesting for material scientists.
14.50 Selection and Testing of New Marine
Bacteria for Green and White Biotechnology
Applications
Dr Robert Speight, Ingenza Ltd
15.15
Refreshments
15.45
Session 4
15.45 Production of Biodegradable Polymers
(Polyhydroxyalkanoates)
Dr Ipsita Roy, School of Life Sciences, University
of Westminster
16.10 Good bugs, Bad bugs; Sol-gel
Encapsulated Bacteria in Anti-Fouling and
Anti-Corrosion Coatings
Professor Robert Akid, Head of Structural
Materials and Integrity Research Centre, Sheffield
Hallam University
16.35 – 16.40
Wrap up and Close
Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), are polyesters of 3-, 4- 5- and 6hydroxyalkanoic acids, produced by a variety of bacterial species under
nutrient-limiting conditions with excess carbon. These polymers are
biodegradable and biocompatible in nature and hence can be used in a
variety of applications including packaging, production of paints,
agriculture, medicine and in biofuel production. Recently there has been
considerable commercial interest in these polymers.
PHAs can be divided into two main groups, short chain length PHAs (sclPHAs), with monomers containing C3-C5 carbon atoms and medium chain
length PHAs (mcl-PHAs), with monomers containing C6-C14 carbon atoms.
The scl-PHAs are generally hard and brittle in nature as opposed to the
mcl-PHAs that are elastomeric in nature.
The talk will describe the production and characterisation of both scl and
mcl-PHAs using Bacillus cereus SPV and Pseudomonas mendocina
respectively, by growing them under different nutrient limiting conditions.
Bacillus cereus SPV has been successfully used to produce poly(3hydroxybutyrate), an scl-PHA, to an yield of about 60% dry cell weight.
Similarly Pseudomonas mendocina has been successfully used for the
production of poly(3-hydroxyoctanoate), a mcl-PHA with a maximum yield
of about 40% dry cell weight. A brief description of the use of these
polymers in medical applications will also be discussed.
The financial loss incurred by corrosion of metals has led to a need to
develop effective, economic and environmentally friendly methods of
protection. In marine environments corrosion is exacerbated by the
formation of destructive biofilms containing sulphate-reducing bacteria,
which promote corrosion by forming corrosive species, notably H2S [1].
Corrosion-causing biofilms are often resistant to destruction by biocides
since the biofilm bacteria are protected by a matrix of exopolymeric
substances (EPS) [2]. Paradoxically, other biofilms that contain protective
bacteria such as Pseudomonas fragi and Paenibacillus polymyxa, can
actually inhibit corrosion [3]. Sol gel technology and immobilised
microorganisms have been combined in a unique coating that inhibits
corrosion on an aluminium alloy 2024-T3 [4, 5], being low-cost, effective
and environmentally friendly.
Conference Chair
For further details please see the event website www.iom3.org/events/bacteria
or contact Dawn Bonfield on 01438 821740 or [email protected].