Transport phenomena in foam fractionation. Foam fractionation has a number of immediate applications in mineral and food processing but its most exciting potential is as low cost alternative for recovering and purifying high value biosurfactants. These are materials used to stabilise interfaces in living systems, and can be used as antibiotics and antiviral agents. The affinity for biosurfactants to collect at an interface suggests that foam fractionation is an ideal process to concentrate valua ....Transport phenomena in foam fractionation. Foam fractionation has a number of immediate applications in mineral and food processing but its most exciting potential is as low cost alternative for recovering and purifying high value biosurfactants. These are materials used to stabilise interfaces in living systems, and can be used as antibiotics and antiviral agents. The affinity for biosurfactants to collect at an interface suggests that foam fractionation is an ideal process to concentrate valuable products. Clearly, a cost-effective and reliable method of enriching streams of biosurfactants will make their use even more attractive and will engender the development of more novel biomaterials, such as pepfactants.Read moreRead less
Renewable energy from carbon dioxide: Process engineering to obtain bio-oil from algae. The Stern Report (2007)[1] has called for a CO2 REDUCTION BY MORE THAN 80% in 10-20 years to prevent profound changes in the climate over coming centuries. The proposed project will capture CO2 using algae then off-set the capital investment and on-going expenses of the CO2 capture technology by creating high value products from algae (i.e. bio-diesel, livestock feed and purified water). This process aims to ....Renewable energy from carbon dioxide: Process engineering to obtain bio-oil from algae. The Stern Report (2007)[1] has called for a CO2 REDUCTION BY MORE THAN 80% in 10-20 years to prevent profound changes in the climate over coming centuries. The proposed project will capture CO2 using algae then off-set the capital investment and on-going expenses of the CO2 capture technology by creating high value products from algae (i.e. bio-diesel, livestock feed and purified water). This process aims to be independently profitable regarless of future carbon taxes or carbon trading systems. This project also investigates water purification methods and new livestock feed additives which can help reduce the effects of drought on food producers in rural and regional areas. Read moreRead less
Manipulation of Biological Particles Using Dielectrophoresis. Dielectrophoretic manipulation and separation of particles has numerous biological and medical applications, e.g. identification and characterisation of individual cells, purification of cell subpopulations from mixture suspensions, etc. This research project aims to develop a high-efficiency and low-cost DEP device for bio-particle manipulation. It will contribute significantly to the advancements in the field of biological Micro-Ele ....Manipulation of Biological Particles Using Dielectrophoresis. Dielectrophoretic manipulation and separation of particles has numerous biological and medical applications, e.g. identification and characterisation of individual cells, purification of cell subpopulations from mixture suspensions, etc. This research project aims to develop a high-efficiency and low-cost DEP device for bio-particle manipulation. It will contribute significantly to the advancements in the field of biological Micro-Electrical-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS) and nanotechnology. Industry will benefit from the expertise on micro/nano-structures and micro/nano-manufacturing achieved by this project.Read moreRead less
Developing a competitive H2 production suystem based on engineered cells of green algae. The depletion of oil reserves and the effects of global warming make the development of new, clean, sustainable fuel production systems critically important. This frontier technology has the ability to drive solar-powered hydrogen production from water. Extending the system to marine algal cells provides the possibility of coupling clean fuel production with water purification as the product of H2 combustion ....Developing a competitive H2 production suystem based on engineered cells of green algae. The depletion of oil reserves and the effects of global warming make the development of new, clean, sustainable fuel production systems critically important. This frontier technology has the ability to drive solar-powered hydrogen production from water. Extending the system to marine algal cells provides the possibility of coupling clean fuel production with water purification as the product of H2 combustion is pure water. We have already engineered green algae that produce H2 from H2O at a rate ~1000% higher than the Wild-type and through this project will incorporate further improvements with the aim of developing a competitive H2 production system.Read moreRead less
Underlying mechanisms of e-waste bioleaching and hydropyrolysis. The project will develop a reclamation technology with an ecologically sustainable solution to e-waste management. Focusing on printed circuit boards, we will use our novel bioleaching and hydropyrolysis methods to process e-wastes, recover base and precious metals and reclaim energy. This will create safe working methods, high recycling efficiencies and generation of products from e-wastes.