MIcrostructured Hydrogel supported on MEmbrane BIOreacTor for Intensified bioproduCtion – MIMEBIOTIC

Biotechnological processes are a profitable and economically viable alternative for a wide range of industrial productions, provided
that the production criteria are maximized (i.e. productivity, yield, final titre). One of the strategies for intensifying bio-production is to
obtain very high concentrations of catalytic microbial biomass. However, high cell density processes raise questions regarding
microbial activity at low water content, with the risk of achieving slow kinetics due to mass transfer limitations.
In this project, high concentrations of microorganisms will be obtained in a controlled manner by immobilizing them in a porous
hydrogel-type structure mimicking natural biofilms but with controlled properties. In addition, hydrogel will be supported on hollow fiber type membranes to insure the separation of the product and facilitate the scale up.
The project aims to propose an innovative and sustainable strategy for intensifying bioprocesses by developing a bioreactor based on
a membrane-supported hydrogel as a microstructure to both immobilize and densify microorganisms of interest. The objectives are i)
to propose a membrane-supported hydrogel (HSM) microstructure for immobilizing microorganisms, ii) to quantify the limitations in
terms of mass transfer (nutrients, dissolved gases) regarding the reaction requirements, iii) to optimize the operating conditions and
the configuration of the HSM bioreactor to ensure the densification of the catalytic biomass, and finally iv) to design an innovative and
high performance membrane bioreactor that can be easily scaled-up for industrialization.
This project combines microbial and process engineering approaches to understand and quantify (i) the impact of HSM bioreactor properties on biological activity, (ii) transfer and transport resistance phenomena and reactivity in hyperdense biological media, (iii) HSM bioreactor performance for targeted bioproduction.