Researchers at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) have developed a sustainable chemical separation method that will help advance microbial chemical production for use in medicine and industry.
The system is based on a membrane built from hollow microfibers that separates culture fluid that contains microalgae from a solvent where the desired product accumulates. The product is then further separated and concentrated using other specialized membranes selected and designed by artificial intelligence that allow recycling of the solvent without loss to the system.
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Microalgae naturally produce many useful chemicals. They can also be genetically engineered to excrete other specialty molecules. Algae are increasingly being harnessed as sustainable and environmentally friendly bio-factories, but separating the precious molecules is challenging.
“The advantage of our method is that products can be continuously extracted from liquid microbial cultures, such as microalgae, in a process known as ‘milking,’ rather than being extracted laboriously from the biomass at the end of a batch culture,” says postdoc and first author Sebastian Overmans.
The team demonstrated the potential of their technique by continuously extracting patchoulol, a compound widely used in perfumery. These membrane combinations could also be applied to many other specialty chemicals.
Chemical engineer Gyorgy Szekely adds that the researchers used the artificial intelligence tools and machine learning capabilities available at KAUST to guide the development and refinement of the membrane process.
The next step is to demonstrate scaling up to industrial levels. The team also plans to develop membranes with larger surface areas and to explore the use of different algal strains to produce many more compounds of interest.
“This is exciting because it could be implemented in large scale bio-factories using a variety of microbes, not only algae, to convert waste into valuable products,” says biotechnologist Kyle J. Lauersen.
The technique is described in more detail in the journal Green Chemistry.