This PhD project aims to develop, model, and optimize a scalable gas fermentation process via the bioconversion of CO2 to acetate.
The objective of this project is to optimize the conditions of acetogenesis from CO2 and H2 in Trickle Bed Reactors (TBRs) and develop a mathematical model that can simulate the gas fermentation process at different scale reactors.
Anaerobic sludge from a biogas plant would be subjected to a series of pretreatments and the acetogenic microbial consortia obtained would be grown and enriched under mesophilic and thermophilic conditions.
Microbial community analysis and growth kinetics would be performed to characterize the microbial consortia.
Experimental data will be used to develop a mathematical model that can accurately describe the acetogenesis process in Trickle Bed Reactors, (TBR).
The conditions inside the TBR would be optimized to enhance the overall productivity of the process. The optimized conditions will be applied in higher scale TBR to finetune and validate the model.
Main supervisor:
Hariklia N. Gavala
Co- supervisors:
Ioannis V. Skiadas
Alexander Shapiro