Objective
Surfactants and emulsifiers constitute an important class of chemical agents that are widely used in almost every sector of modern industry. The huge market demand is currently met almost exclusively by synthetic, mainly petroleum-based, chemical products, which are usually non-biodegradable and mostly toxic or GM plant based products (used in foods), which are undesirable by some end-users. Their biologically produced counterparts (i.e. bio-surfactants and bio-emulsifiers) offer more green sustainable alternatives. This has led to a number of manufactures, looking for ways to increase competitiveness through searching for underexploited sources such as the marine environment. Our objectives are to develop (1) innovative approaches in discovering, characterizing and producing novel marine-derived bio-surfactants from a large bacterial collection (greater than 500 strains) housed at Heriot Watt University, originally isolated from various coastal and open ocean waters around the world, (2) novel, economic, and eco-friendly end-products with commercial applications in order to replace synthetic counterparts, and (3) to demonstrate the functionality of new product development for commercial exploitation. Our collection consists of novel bacterial species, originally isolated for their ability to degrade oils, with proven promise in this respect. For this reason, our consortium (consisting of academic institutions, industrial companies and end-users) offering a wide range of expertise, will address the technical bottlenecks for meeting our objectives, namely those of marine resource identification, sustainable supply, discovery pipeline and efficient production in biological systems. The relevance of our proposal to the work programme is underlined by its expected impact in increasing efficiency of discovery pipelines, the development of more economic and eco-friendly end-products and finally in contributing to the implementation of the objectives of the EU Blue Growth.
Fields of science
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic health
- medical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologygenetic engineering
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsfossil energypetroleum
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringtextiles
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybioprocessing technologiesfermentation
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
EH14 4AS Edinburgh
United Kingdom
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Participants (12)
BT52 1SA Coleraine
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691 00 Komotini
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9042 Desteldonk Gent
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
60131 Ancona
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
08225 Terrassa
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19003 Markopoulo
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
TS97AB Stokesley
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Participation ended
AB39 3YG Stonehaven
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
36310 Vigo Pontevedra
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
265 04 Rio Patras
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50354 Huerth
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
NE1 8ST Newcastle Upon Tyne
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