Lund University
About
Lund University is a public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe´s oldest universities, founded in 1666. The research group from ULUND belongs to Division of Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology (BAM) within a recently established Department of Process and Life Science Engineering (PLE), which is a part of Faculty of Engineering. Research and education at PLE cover different areas related to food technology, biotechnology and chemical engineering. PLE has a pre-pilot plant dedicated to advancing research and development and industrial collaborations.
Major part of research at BAM is directed towards development of biotechnology tools for sustainable development with much focus on value addition to renewable resources with minimal environmental impact. The Division has well equipped laboratories for microbiology, biochemistry, gene technology, bioprocesses, bioseparations and analysis.
The research group participating in UPCYCLE is led by Professor Rajni Hatti Kaul and has competence related to microbial diversity, biocatalyst development via protein engineering and metabolic engineering, microbial and enzymatic transformations, in situ product recovery, and also green chemistry. These skills are used for biomass pretreatment and fractionation, transformation of sugars, lignin and carbon dioxide to building blocks for chemicals, materials and biofuels, and design of enzyme-based antimicrobials.
The group has been actively involved in multidisciplinary projects in collaboration with several industrial partners, and its members have also founded a few start-ups.
Role in Upcycle
ULUND will primarily be involved in Work Packages 2 and 3 of UPCYCLE for developing scalable processes for depolymerization of plastic wastes and fermentation of renewable feedstock to polymer building blocks.
In collaboration with other partners in WP2, ULUND will contribute towards testing and validating advanced enzyme variants and chimeric systems for improved depolymerisation of crystalline PET and complex polyester blends, and will support the translation of laboratory-scale enzyme systems into robust, industrially relevant recycling workflows. work on downstream separation and purification (T2.2), ULUND will investigate techniques like precipitation, extraction, membrane filtration, and distillation to recover pure monomers from enzymatically degraded PET and PBAT. These protocols are designed to ensure energy efficiency, solvent minimisation, and environmental sustainability, enabling the production of kilogram-scale of purified monomers for further polymerisation in subsequent work packages.
In WP3, ULUND will work on developing a scalable microbial process for production of 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid, a key bio-based building block for next-generation polyesters. This will be achieved by modifying the bacterium Gluconobacter oxydans via metabolic engineering and CRISPR-based gene editing, optimization of cell growth and biotransformation mode to boost yield and process stability, and downstream processing for product recovery with high purity and yield.
Beyond the core recycling tasks, ULUND will contribute to environmental, life-cycle, and safety assessments within UPCYCLE’s Safe and Sustainable by Design framework, ensuring that all developed materials and processes meet EU standards for environmental performance and human safety.