The transition towards a clean economy requires novel processes for chemical, material, and liquid fuel production that use sustainable substrates, have improved life cycle, and hence a reduced carbon footprint. Cell factories provide the ultimate platform for this purpose to drive the world economy and mitigate risks emanating from climate change. An exponential increase in process productivity by rapid technological developments in the fields of additive manufacturing and synthetic biology has the potential to influence nearly every industry because of adaptability and continual cost reduction. In this project, we offer interdisciplinary research that combines the advances in additive manufacturing of living materials with synthetic biology of non-conventional yeasts to manufacture a novel flow chemistry platform for creating biorefineries that can convert sustainable, locally available substrates into value-added oleochemicals with an aim to meet sustainability goals of society.
With this project, we demonstrate the efficiency of a novel biotechnological process on a pilot scale, which converts wood industry residues (pre-processed sawdust) into healthy feed and food additives. A life cycle analysis is performed on the process, quantitatively demonstrating the advantages of the circular economic process, and a platform is created for the effective development of industrial biotechnology processes on various sustainable commodities such as food waste, by-products of the food industry and agriculture.