The production of biodegradable plastics faces high production cost arising mainly from the price of the raw material. Various industrial residues and byproducts may offer a cheap alternative. However, many of these materials contain high salt concentrations and substances that may inhibit microbial growth. Halotolerant or halophilic organisms may help to circumvent these problems due to their unique ability to prosper in harsh environments. Bacillus megaterium, a gram positive bacterium, has been described to grow at different salt concentrations (0–50 g/L NaCl) (Rodríguez-Contreras et al., 2016), making it an interesting candidate for PHA production from industrial residues.

Project Description:
Desugarized molasses differs from “normal” molasses as the sucrose contend is reduced to 15-20%. The large quantities of this residue makes it a potential feedstock for the production of short-chain-length PHA. The goal of the master-project is to upscale already established bioreactor experiments up to 500 L volume. Thereby, various process parameters, such as inoculum, temperature, etc. should be optimized.

Methods:

 Microbiological techniques

 Fermentation at lab-scale and pilot plant stations

 Chemical analytics (HPLC, GC, Microscopy, ect….)

Start: February 2018

Duration of the practical work at the IFA Tulln: 6 months

Financing: ca. 400 €/month

Information and Contact:

Dr. Markus Neureiter (markus.neureiter@boku.ac.at)

Maximilian Schmid MSc (maximilian.schmid@boku.ac.at)