Poison to Products: On harnessing the power of microorganisms to convert waste streams into new chemicals

One of the main challenges society currently deals with is the depletion of fossil fuels. To navigate this issue, we must embrace the concept of circularity and turn waste into a resource. Waste streams are omnifarious and their conversion into new chemical building blocks is not always trivial. Luckily, we can take a look at nature’s problem...

From waste to self-healing concrete: the missing PHA-link

Self-healing concrete has attracted increasing attention of researchers and industry over the last decades. Given the brittle nature and the relatively low tensile strength of concrete, the occurrence of cracks is an almost unavoidable phenomenon affecting (reinforced) concrete structures. Cracks allow harmful agents present in the environment...

Polyhydroxyalkanoate production by municipal waste activated sludge: Tackling scaling-up process challenges

Microbes are the gears that sustain all forms of life in planet Earth and are expected to become key players in the transition towards a more sustainable society. In this thesis, microbes from sewage sludge are used for the production of polyhydroxyalkanoates, biodegradable polymers that have the potential to replace<br/>many of the petroleum...

Converting Wastewater Treatment Plants into Polyhydroxyalkanoate Production Factories

Fossils derived plastics offer a wide range of services in applications, frompackaging to building and construction, to electronics and water distribution networks. The use of fossils to produce plastics releases the stored CO2 and contributes to climate change. Due to durability and resistance to degradation, discarded plastics accumulate in...

PHA biosynthesis, recovery, and application: A circular value chain for production of self-healing concrete from waste

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are a family of biopolymers produced intracellular<br/>by a range of different bacteria.PHA have attracted widespread attention as<br/>an environmental friendly replacement of fossil-based polymers, because they<br/>have thermoplastic and/or elastomeric properties, and are also biobased and<br/>biodegradable.Moreover,...

Exploring Microbial Diversity: Extending the boundaries of biopolymer production using parallel cultivation

Quickly, the show is about the start. Date: 3.5 thousand million years ago, location: planet Earth, event: life. Naturally, life is starting small, even microscopically tiny. Life in the form of microorganisms endures eons of time in which the world changes. They survived, failed, adapted, thrived, and they actually changed the world. They have...

The influence of essential growth nutrients on PHA production from waste

Volatile fatty acids (VFA) may serve as building blocks for Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) production and can be derived from waste streams. Ideal streams for PHA production contain a high Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) to nutrient ratio, such as (waste)water from a paper-mill factory or candy-bar factory. The (waste)water generated by these...

Resource recovery from organic waste streams by microbial enrichment cultures

Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is a natural product that can potentially replace a part of the chemicals and plastics derived from fossil sources. One of the main barriers for market entry of PHA is its relatively high price compared to conventional (fossil) feedstocks. This high price is related to current industrial production methods which are...