Research helping to build a more sustainable circular bioeconomy has been boosted by the announcement of BBSRC’s £5.3 million circular bioeconomy fund. Projects are either:
- working to make the textile industry more sustainable
- will support the recycling and reuse of technology-relevant metals
The metals-related projects are:
PETAL: developing a plant-based platinum group metal recovery system – Elizabeth Rylott, University of York
BioElectrochemical LIthium rEcoVEry (BELIEVE) – Claudio Avignone Rossa, University of Surrey
Biotechnological route for sustainable recovery of high-value metals – Abhishek Lahiri, Brunel University London
Tuning extracellular cytochromes for enhanced metal recovery and nanoparticle formation – Thomas Clarke, University of East Anglia
Microbially mediated functionalised magnetic nanoparticles from acid mine drainage – James Byrne, University of Bristol
Novel microbial Pd catalysts from waste for sustainable synthesis – Louise Horsfall, University of Edinburgh
Bioprocessing of lithium brines – Laura Newsome, University of Exeter
PHYTO4METAL: development of an integrated phytomining system for the recovery of metal nanoparticles from mine waste – Luis Novo, SRUC
Selective metal biorecovery from lithium-ion batteries – Louise Horsfall, University of Edinburgh
ABC: use of Azolla for biomining of heavy metals towards a Circular bioeconomy – Thomas Torode, Keele University