Development of novel polymer membranes via phase inversion on a purpose-built casting rig.
Preparation of novel hybrid materials such as chitosan-PMMA composites etc.
Functionalisation of polymer membranes with silanes and potentially chiral moieties such as biomolecules. This is to allow phase separation by chemical affinity as well as size.
Optimisation of pore structure and size for specific biomolecule filtration.
Improvement of tensile strength and rigidity under filtration conditions.

The main goal of the project is to assess the potential for individual or sequential pre-treatments combinations of high voltage pulse electric fields to induce cell/biosolid lysis leading to an enhanced substrate for bioconversion.

The work has been divided in five different work tasks (WT): WT1. Literature review, method development, and design future experiments; WT2. Screening of substrates in terms of suitability for biogas production.; WT3. Assessment of physically disruptive pre-treatments for the substrates chosen for further study in terms of biogas production; WT4. Short circuiting the anaerobic digestion pathways to produce medium chain fatty acids (a new WT in addition to what was included in the original proposal)WT5. Cost benefit analysis of pre-treatments for production of biogas and other products.

Biotechnological conversion processes involving gases (derived from residues) are often limited by challenges such as (i) poor mass transfer characteristics (rate-limiting) particularly due to low solubility of relevant gases (ii) safety issues with certain gases (iii) presence of impurities in the gas streams (iv) a limited understanding of the design and scale-up of gas-based systems. This project aims to overcome these obstacles with new bioreactor designs involving membranes and to undertake scale-up and techno-economic analysis of these novel process.