Background

When organised in biofilms, microorganisms have higher resilience to stressful conditions and a higher ability to entrap and degrade molecules or reduce ions. Biofilms have been used extensively for biodegradation and biosynthesis processes. Electrochemically active biofilms have attracted considerable attraction in bio-electrochemical systems, such as microbial fuel cells, where they act as living bioanode or biocathode catalysts.

Technology Overview

The new technology is a method that employs novel synthetic polymers to nucleate the growth of biofilms, without the need for any genetic input. This is especially important in bioremediation as release of genetically modified organisms into the environment is unacceptable. The range of polymers allows to induce biofilms in a wide spectrum of bacteria, specifically addressing their properties. 

An additional benefit of these novel microorganism-polymer complexes is that they can be easily dispersed by changing the culture environment.

Benefits

• Enables microorganisms to easily form biofilms
• Increases efficiency
• Increases productivity
• Easily dispersed
• Replaces the need for genetic engineering
• Saves cost
• Saves time
• Improves safety

Applications

• Biofilm reactors
• Water and wastewater remediation
• Remediation of contaminated soil
• Bioleaching
• Biosensing
• Production of bulk and fine chemicals
• Production of energy
• Microbial fuel cells

Opportunity

• Co-development
• Collaboration
• Licensing