– The allowance for students is €200. The student can apply for ‘Wetsus Grant’ allowance (€200 extra; an internal committee decides if the allowance will be granted).
– Students can apply for Erasmus; (if the Erasmus grant is less than €400, the student can apply for the Wetsus Grant).
– Erasmus
*The Wetsus Grant allowance is not guaranteed and must be approved by the Grant Committee.
Background and Research objective
Due to population growth and climate change, there is an increasing demand for recovering carbon and nutrients from low-value, polluting waste streams. Gas and liquid streams are important sources of valuable resources that can be recovered through microorganisms. For instance, microorganisms are capable of converting carbon dioxide (CO2) in off-gases, organic matter and nutrients in residues into valuable products such as microbial biomass or soluble products like carboxylates, alcohols, among others. Open cultures are advantageous over pure cultures to achieve lower operational costs and more robust bioprocesses. In this project, we aim to make an overview of emerging products from CO2 conversion with open cultures based on the latest reports. A selected innovative process and promising product will be evaluated experimentally in the laboratory in terms of carbon, nutrient and energy efficiency. Finally, the potential contribution of such technological approach to carbon and nutrient capture and potential commercial applications will be envisioned.
Requirements
Contact
Please contact Carlos Contreras Davila (carlos.contrerasdavila@wetsus.nl) and Tom Sleutels (tom.sleutels@wetsus.nl) for more information or directly apply by sending your CV and motivation letter.