Closing carbon cycles with renewable amines

Waste contains many utilisable components that along with many others can be transformed into valuable products. Through microbial fermentation it is then possible to create products such as platform chemicals, fuels, biochemicals, or even biopolymers. Yet, these microbes need to be engineered to thrive and produce within these waste streams.

Background

Sustainability is one of the most critical topics of our times and has rightly moved into the centre of many discussions today. Products are designed with sustainability in mind, industries try to transform into more sustainable patterns, policies regarding or including sustainability are increasing on the agenda, and the public is requesting more concentrated efforts toward it.

We need a transformative shift from current industrial production to a circular, sustainable economy. Fortunately, biotechnology and synthetic biology research and innovation provide multiple solutions for transitioning to a green bioeconomy. By leveraging and enhancing microorganisms and their remarkable properties, we can tackle numerous tasks to mitigate global damage.

Especially, growing and producing fine chemical using microorganisms in waste streams instead of pure clean media offers significant environmental and economic benefits. Utilising waste streams reduces the need for expensive, refined feedstocks, lowering production costs. It also minimises waste disposal issues by repurposing industrial and agricultural by-products, contributing to a circular economy. This approach decreases reliance on finite resources and reduces the environmental footprint of production processes. Moreover, it aligns with sustainable practices by converting waste into valuable products, thereby supporting green technology initiatives and promoting resource efficiency in industrial biotechnology. Within this project, we genetically engineer these microorganisms to thrive in these waste streams and produce fine chemicals.

Project description

This project aims to engineer Pseudomonas putida to convert waste streams (such as municipality and papermill waste) into valuable aromatic amines. By leveraging metabolic engineering techniques, we seek to create a sustainable and economically viable method for producing these compounds, reducing reliance on petrochemical resources and minimising environmental impact.

Main goals

• Characterisation of microbial performance in a wide set of waste streams
• Establish novel production pathways for aromatic amines
• Metabolic engineering of P.putida to produce aromatic amines at high TRY levels