Description of Activity
Screening the APPLIcation potential of a yeast-based bioSURFactant portfolioSurfactants are performance molecules that intervene in nearly every product and aspect of human daily life with a global turnover of $ 31 billion in 2016. Despite the efforts to move towards a bio-based economy, only 4 % of the surfactant market is 100 % bio-based (e.g. APGs and MESs). An even smaller part (<0.1 %) of the market is not only 100 % bio-based, but also produced through biological processes, such as microbial, plant-based and/or enzymatic processes. Although a lot of companies are striving towards such sustainable solutions, current limitations blocking valorisation of such technologies can be mainly defined as 1. higher production costs and 2. limited structural variability and thus a lack of physicochemical (and biological) properties.In AppliSurf a combination of genetic modification, fermentation development/optimization and green chemistry will be applied to enable commercial production at an acceptable cost of an innovative and broad portfolio of biosurfactant structures. The unique properties of these ‘new-to-market’ biosurfactants will be identified by high throughput screening for industrially relevant properties (foaming, emulsification, wetting, gelling, antimicrobial properties, etc.). Subsequent structure-function modeling of this family of compounds will enable the prediction of the properties of compounds not included in the screen. The latter will maximize the output of the project, also after the projects’ end. Scale-up of the optimized production processes will generate samples for in-house evaluation by the interested industrial members of the user group.
| Period | 8 Oct 2018 |
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| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Ghent, BelgiumShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |