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INCITE - Innovative Ionic Liquid-enzyme tandems for enhanced biomass degradation

Running

Running

Prime contractor
Organisational Unit
15 October 2024

Duration: 18 months

Objective

Achieving cost-effective lignocellulosic biomass degradation is key to unlocking vast amounts of renewable resources as feedstocks for the circular economy. Current lignocellulosic pretreatment approaches are not cost-effective for widescale implementation. The aim of the project is to develop a novel lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment technology that exploits the synergy between ionic liquids (ILs) and enzyme-mediated reactions. The project will select and characterize extremophilic microorganisms that can develop under IL treatments, and identify their key hydrolytic enzymes. These enzymes will be heterologously expressed to establish the enzyme-IL biocompatibility, allowing an integrative strategy for efficient biomass conversion using enzyme-IL tandems.

This project will deliver a novel technology for cost-efficient lignocellulose degradation, and enable the use of lignocellulosic biomass as feedstock for biotechnological production routes of bio-based chemicals and materials. This activity does not only help to advance towards a more sustainable society, but has strong commercial appeal. Additionally, due to its close-loop nature, it could be also applied to pretreat mission residues in bioregenerative life support systems for space exploration.

Contract number
4000145789
Programme
OSIP Idea Id
I-2024-00158
Related OSIP Campaign
Open Channel
Main application area
NEW
Budget
175000€
INCITE - Innovative Ionic Liquid-enzyme tandems for enhanced biomass degradation