IIT Mandi Identifies Microbial Partners Capable Of Converting Cellulosic Waste Into Useful Chemicals

Indian Institute of Technology Mandi  researchers have identified microbial pairs that can effectively convert cellulose (a major component present in Agriculture residue and paper waste) into useful chemicals, biofuels, and carbon suitable for several industrial applications.  

The details of this research have been published in the journal Bioresource Technology Reports, in a paper co-authored by Dr Shyam Kumar Masakapalli, Associate Professor, School of Biosciences and Bioengineering; Dr Swati Sharma, Assistant Professor School of Engineering and their research scholars Chandrakant Joshi, Mahesh Kumar, Jyotika Thakur from IIT Mandi, Martyn Bennett and David J Leak from University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom and Neil MacKinnon from KIT, Germany.

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IIT Mandi researchers identify microbial partners that can efficiently convert cellulosic waste into useful chemicals

This sustainable process can readily be adopted to design microbial SynCONS partners for efficient bioprocessing of complex polymers to platform chemicals.

Video Link: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1LBbntWCUAkpo4mYYlDKbEnR0RKTJqB8Z

MANDI, 9th May 2023: Indian Institute of Technology Mandi  researchers have identified microbial pairs that can effectively convert cellulose (a major component present in Agriculture residue and paper waste) into useful chemicals, biofuels, and carbon suitable for several industrial applications.  

The details of this research have been published in the journal Bioresource Technology Reports, in a paper co-authored by Dr Shyam Kumar Masakapalli, Associate Professor, School of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Dr Swati Sharma, Assistant Professor School of Engineering and their research scholars Mr Chandrakant Joshi, Mr Mahesh Kumar, Ms Jyotika Thakur from IIT Mandi, Mr Martyn Bennett and Mr David J. Leak from University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom, and Mr Neil MacKinnon from KIT, Germany.

Plant dry matter, also known as lignocellulose, is one of the most abundant renewable materials on Earth. Lignocellulosic waste from agriculture, forests and industries can be converted into valuable chemicals such as bioethanol, biodiesel, lactic acid, and fatty acids using a process called bioprocessing. Bioprocessing, however, involves multiple steps and can release undesirable chemicals, requiring multiple washing and separation steps, which increases costs.  

Scientists are exploring an innovative method called consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) to convert lignocellulosic biomass into useful chemicals. This method involves combining saccharification (the conversion of the cellulose into simple sugars) and fermentation (the conversion of simple sugars into alcohol) into one step. One way to achieve this is by using a synthetic microbial consortium (SynCONS).  SynCONS are a combination of different microorganisms; in this case, two types of microbes are selected, one brings about saccharification and the other, fermentation. A combination of microbes that is stable at high temperatures (thermophilic consortia) is particularly useful because fermentation is a heat-releasing process.