Industrial Bioengineering and Applied Organic Chemistry Group

The sustainable utilization of natural resources requires improved environmental technology. The depletion of non-renewable energy sources requires novel renewable energy harvesting technologies. For water technology, there is an urgent need for adaptation to and mitigation of the effects of climate change. Depletion of high-grade mineral resources requires new technologies for metal recovery from low-grade minerals. Recovery and recycling of nutrients from waste streams seeks to address their global scarcity.

In the group there are three active research teams: Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology (IEB), Water and Waste Engineering (WWE) and Applied Organic Chemistry  (AOC). The IEB and WWE groups combine fundamental research of underlying environmental and analytical chemistry, microbiology, microbial ecology and bioprocess engineering with up-to-date molecular and systems biology methods to sustain research excellence. The approach of integrated, interdisciplinary research into many different types of bioprocesses leads to a more universal understanding of the essential principles of engineered microbial ecosystems. The AOC-group, is performing fundamental research in the field of catalysis. The objective is to develop novel methods in the field of synthetic chemistry and to find ways to use genetic engineering, synthetic biology, molecular microbiology and bioengineering at the Department to produce chemicals by new, unforeseen catalytic means. 

The top ten research achievements of the IEB and WWE groups have been listed in Table 1a. Examples of sustainable manufacture research include novel bioengineering systems for mining and metallurgy (I) and the microbiology-based high-quality water services (II). Bioengineering research using dark fermentation has resulted in high-rate, high yield production of hydrogen and ethanol (III) and improved process monitoring (IV). Extremophilic organisms have been discovered (V) and successfully utilized in open bioengineering systems. Metabolic engineering, aided by whole genome sequencing (VI) is targeted at enhanced production of energy carriers from waste materials such as lignocellulose. The microbial ecology research has resulted in in-depth understanding, optimization and control of complex microbial communities in industrial and environmental engineering bioprocesses (I, II, III). Molecular methodologies have been used (I, II, III) and further developed (IV) for microbial community diagnostics in open bioengineering processes and control of microbiologically related problems. The occurrence and fate of common pharmaceuticals and personal care product residues in drinking and boreal humic-rich surface waters have been described together with their removal from raw and waste water during treatment (VII). Whole-cell sensors based on light-emitting bacteria have been developed for the detection of numerous environmental contaminants (as reviewed in VIII). Natural Organic Matter removal from humic-rich raw water has been characterized and enhanced in Water Works (IX). The evolution of water services in European cities has been analyzed over a period of 150 years (X).