Innovative Biochemical Engineering Approaches for a Healthy Environment

创新生化工程方法打造健康环境

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-05125
• 负责人: Bassi, Amarjeet
• 金额: $ 2.84万
• 依托单位: University of Western Ontario
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=746686
• 关键词: Innovative; Biochemical; Engineering; Approaches; Healthy

The doubling of the earth's population in the last 50 years poses several significant challenges for society including pressure on limited food supplies, shrinking availability of safe drinking water and the rampant increase in plastic and micro-plastic wastes on a global scale. The applications of microbial systems and their components offers tremendous potential to clean up pollution and recover value by reducing the environmental footprint, develop new sustainable processes and improve human health. In particular, approximately 300 million tons of plastics are produced annually on a global scale. Only a fraction of these plastics are recycled and a much larger amount ends up as waste. Plastics in landfills, in water resources, lakes, rivers, and oceans are a serious issue. Of particular concern are microplastics (particles of plastic less than 5 mm in diameter), which can be ingested by marine organisms, endangering their life and leading to various downstream environmental problems. A second issue is the release of millions of litres of untreated water (containing high levels of nitrates and phosphates) annually into the environment. In addition, sugar laden waste waters from ethanol and corn starch industries, and road salt effluents are other challenging waste streams. These wastewaters offer great potential potential to recover value such as nutraceuticals, biofuels (by the cultivation of microalgae) or high value biopolymer (by cultivation of bacteria, yeast and fungi). The overall goals of the Bassi group in this NSERC Discovery Grant application are to investigate the applications of bio-surfactants for value recovery from wastewater streams. Over the past 15 years, the Bassi group has been engaged in research related to both phycoremediation (the application of beneficial microalgae to recover clean water and value from waste streams) and plastic waste mitigation. In both these areas, biosurfactant based research will play a significant role in developing potential new applications such as the removal of micro-plasics from wastewater streams using foam fractionation and improved techniques to grow microalgae on wastewater streams at high yields using the concept of foam based photo-bioreactors. Over the next five years, this proposed research will train 3 PhDs, 1 M.E.Sc, 5 undergraduate students. These objectives will lead to deeper understanding over a long term, for discovering new routes and sources of bio-surfactants, the cost effectiveness of bio-surfactant production and recovery and their applications as novel tools in biochemical engineering processes. The HQP trained in this proposal will provide needed skills to industry with an understanding of how to manage the significant challenges of today and harness solutions based in Canada but applicable for a global society.

在过去的50年中，地球人口的增加一倍，对社会构成了一些重大挑战，包括对有限的粮食供应压力，安全饮用水的可用性缩小以及塑料和微型塑料废物在全球范围内猖ramp。微生物系统及其组件的应用提供了巨大的潜力，可以通过减少环境足迹，开发新的可持续过程并改善人类健康来清理污染和恢复价值。特别是，每年在全球范围内生产约3亿吨塑料。这些塑料中只有一小部分是回收的，而大量的塑料作为废物最终。垃圾填埋场，水资源，湖泊，河流和海洋的塑料是一个严重的问题。特别关注的是微塑料（直径小于5 mm的塑料颗粒），可以被海洋生物摄入，危害其生命并导致各种下游环境问题。第二个问题是每年将数百万升未经处理的水（含有高水平的硝酸盐和磷酸盐）释放到环境中。此外，来自乙醇和玉米淀粉工业以及道路盐废水的糖载有糖的废水是其他具有挑战性的废物流。这些废水为恢复价值的潜力提供了巨大的潜力，例如营养素，生物燃料（通过微藻的培养）或高价值的生物聚合物（通过细菌，酵母和真菌的培养）。 Bassi集团在此NSERC Discovery Grant应用程序中的总体目标是调查生物表面活性剂在废水流中的价值回收中的应用。在过去的15年中，Bassi集团从事与植物修复有关的研究（有益微藻的应用以从废物流中回收清洁水和价值）和减轻塑料废物。在这两个领域中，基于生物表面活性剂的研究将在开发潜在的新应用中发挥重要作用，例如使用泡沫分馏和改进的技术从废水流中去除微层流，并使用基于泡沫的基于泡沫的照相机的概念，以高收益率在废水流上生长微藻。在接下来的五年中，这项拟议的研究将培训3个博士学位，1 M.E.Sc，5名本科生。这些目标将在长期内更深入地理解，以发现生物表面活性剂的新路线和来源，生物表面活性剂生产和恢复的成本效益以及它们作为生化工程过程中新型工具的应用。在本提案中培训的HQP将为行业提供所需的技能，以了解如何管理当今的重大挑战以及位于加拿大的安全带解决方案，但适用于全球社会。