Category: News

Value of AD Research Recognised with AD Ambassador Award

Leaders across the anaerobic digestion industry met earlier this month for the fourth annual UK AD & Biogas Industry Awards held at the Birmingham NEC.

Angela Bywater, Network co-Manager of the BBSRC-funded Anaerobic Digestion was amongst those recognised for their contribution to the industry, receiving an ADBA Industry Ambassador Award for her work in championing the AD industry’s interests  and, in particular, the value of research and development.

ADBA Chief Executive Charlotte Morton said “There has been a lot of exceptional hard work by dedicated professionals over the past five years, all aimed at scaling our industry. Today the AD industry boasts 400 biogas plants, which together deliver an electrical equivalent capacity of almost 480 megawatts – equivalent to the capacity of one of the nuclear power plants, Wyfla, which is being decommissioned this year.“ She added that, with these awards, “We’re honoured to recognise the greatest contributors to those sector triumphs that have developed AD as an established, proven technology.”

The Anaerobic Digestion Network is one of 13 BBSRC funded Networks in Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy and is led by Professor Charles Banks of the University of Southampton and Professor Orkun Soyer from the University of Warwick. The AD Network provides research funding accessible to business and academia, as well as running low cost/free networking and information dissemination events for anyone interested in innovation and research in the field of Anaerobic Digestion.  Membership is free to all. More information can be found at www.anaerobicdigestionnet.com/.

Early Career Researchers Win at AD Network Event

Nearly 50 researchers from 17 universities came together on 29-30 Jun 15 at the University of Warwick in order to discuss their cutting edge research. Find out about the winning researchers and prize categories…

Nearly 50 researchers from 17 universities came together on 29-30 Jun 15 at the University of Warwick in order to discuss their cutting edge research. Whilst having a common theme of anaerobic digestion, subject matter varied widely, from pot ale to bioelectrochemistry and metagenomics, with everything else in between. info and photos ….

IEA Bioenergy Task 37 Country Reports Summary 2014

For those of you not aware of this, the IEA Task 37 website has a number of useful resources, not least of which are the Country Reports which summarise activity in member countries over the given period.

Task 37 members recently published an annual summary of their Country Reports for 2014. The individual country reports include information on the number of biogas plants in operation, biogas production data, biogas utilisation, number of upgrading plants, number of vehicles using biomethane as fuel, details of financial support mechanisms and some information on key national research and development projects.

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Biogas in smart energy grids

Task 37 recently published a technical brochure on “A perspective on the potential role of biogas in smart energy grids”. Increased generation of electricity from wind and solar installations is leading to challenges in terms of balancing electricity demand with supply and managing the increasing occurrences of surplus electricity. Biogas systems can facilitate increased proportions of variable renewable electricity on the electricity grid mainly through use of two different technologies: demand driven biogas systems which increase production of electricity from biogas facilities at times of high demand for electricity, or temporary storage of biogas at times of low electricity demand; and power to gas (P2G) systems when demand for electricity is less than supply of electricity to the electricity grid, allowing conversion of surplus electricity to methane.

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EXPERTS NEEDED!

BBSRC are looking to appoint suitably qualified and motivated individuals from academia, industry and other BBSRC user communities to fill a number of vacancies on our Strategy Advisory Panels, the Pool of Experts, Committee E and Follow-on-Fund Committee.

This is an opportunity to work with other highly experienced people from across the academic, public, private and civil sectors to make an important contribution to the future direction of bioscience research.

http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/about/structures/committees/committee-pool-membership/call-for-pool-experts-strategy-panels-and-committees/

There are vacancies for:

  • Assessment Committee (pool) members
  • Strategy Panel members
    • Agriculture and Food Security Strategy Advisory Panel
    • Bioscience for Health Strategy Advisory Panel
    • Bioscience For Industry Strategy Panel
    • Bioscience for Society Strategy Panel
    • Exploiting New Ways Of Working Strategy Advisory Panel
    • Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy Strategy Advisory Panel
  • Committee E members (fellowship funding)
  • Follow-on-Fund committee members

If you know of anyone who you think would be interested in applying to this, please can you pass this information on to them.

The call is open until midnight Sunday 5th July

IEA Bioenergy Task 37 Country Reports Summary 2014

Members of Task 37 recently published an annual summary of their Country Reports for 2014. The individual country reports include information on the number of biogas plants in operation, biogas production data, biogas utilisation, number of upgrading plants, number of vehicles using biomethane as fuel, details of financial support mechanisms and some information on key national research and development projects.

Find out more here: http://www.iea-biogas.net/country-reports.html

View from the Lab – Send in your photos!

The BBSRC have a new project called ‘View from the Lab’. They are looking for very short submissions which capture the day in the life of a scientist. If you would like to get involved, all you have to do is take a picture and tell them a little bit about yourself (just a paragraph or two). This is a great opportunity to put your communication skills into action, and gives you the chance to practice explaining what you do to a lay audience.

Here is what you do:

  1. Take a picture. It could be the view from your window or from your desk/bench, and it doesn’t have to be an actual lab if you’re a scientist who does field work or sits in front of a computer. The only guideline is for the photo to be of your view, not you. If you can capture something cool and exciting in your view (such as a piece of equipment used in your research) then even better.
  2.  Tell us about yourself and the picture. Send us your name, email address, country, job title and…

What do you do? Explain in one paragraph, and for a lay audience, what your job entails. Make sure you explain any terms that non-scientists might not understand.

What can I see in the picture you sent? Describe your view in one paragraph

When I’m not doing science, I… Tell us a bit more about yourself in one paragraph

Send your entries to Anisha Chandar – Anisha.Chandar@bbsrc.ac.uk

IB Catalyst Engineering Event – 9 Jun 15

The KTN are holding an IB Catalyst Engineering focused workshop on Tuesday 9th June in Fallowfield, Manchester from 09.30 to 16.00.  Register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ib-catalyst-engineering-focused-workshop-tickets-16629811213

This is a free consortium-building event which aims to present information to Engineering academics and encourage them to apply their skills to IBBE problems and become involved in IB Catalyst proposals. The workshop offers opportunities for engineers to provide new approaches for IB projects and for  biotechnological industries searching to design engineering solutions to their biological processes.

This is a free consortium-building event to stimulate engineering lead projects for the Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst (IB Catalyst). It is designed to help business and researchers develop innovative engineering solutions for different industrial biotechnological applications.

The aim of this workshop is to:

  • Highlight the engineering opportunities within industrial biotechnology;
  • Identify new engineering technologies that could be applied to a range of biological processes: and
  • Learn about national investment in industrial biotechnology through IB Catalyst, NIBBs and Supergen.

Representatives from Innovate UK, EPSRC, BBRSC and KTN will be present to address any queries related to the funding competition.

Who should attend?

 The workshop offers opportunities for:

  • Engineers to provide new approaches for industrial biotechnological projects.
  • Biotechnological industries searching to design engineering solutions to their biological processes.

Workshop Structure

It covers:

  • Scope of the IB Catalyst competition and rules
  • Overview of different opportunities that engineering offers to industrial biotechnology.
  • State-of-the-art engineering technologies for biotech companies.
  • Delegate pitch presentations outlining expertise and chances for collaboration.

About IB Catalyst

In January 2014 Innovate UK, BBRSC and EPSRC invested £40M to support integrated researcher and development projects through the Industrial Biotechnology Catalyst (IB Catalyst). The IB Catalyst provides funding to companies and researchers to work together in priority areas to bring their biotechnology innovations to market and to help cement the UK’s position as a world leading sector.

IB Catalyst programme will accelerate commercialization by supporting the development of new industrial biotechnology products and processes, and enabling their potential to scale-up. It supports R&D for the processing and production of materials, chemicals and bioenergy through the sustainable exploitation of biological resources.

There are five types of award – Early Stage; (1) Translational, and (2) Feasibility studies: (3) Industrial Research: (4) Late Stage; and (5) Experimental Development – and, with the exception of Translation awards that are academic lead, can involve a single business or be collaborative. Total Project Size can range from up to £250k for feasibility studies to up £10m for experimental development.

Scope:

IB Catalyst supports R&D in the process and production of materials, chemicals (including pharmaceutical precursors and biopharmaceuticals) and bioenergy. The biological resources that may be used in these processes include tissues, enzymes, and genes from algae, marine life, fungi, microorganisms and plants.

Projects should address one or more of the following challenges using biological processes, or processes in which biological and chemical approaches are used in combination:

  • Production of fine and speciality chemicals and natural products (for example fragrances, flavours, and pharmaceutical intermediates).
  • Production of commodity, platform and intermediate chemicals and materials (for example plastics, resins and textiles).
  • Production of liquid and gaseous biofuels.
  • Production of peptides and proteins (for example enzymes, antibiotics, and recombinant biologics).
  • Novel or improved upstream or downstream processes to reduce cost or improve efficiency.

The IB Catalyst will not fund research that uses feedstock from material that could be used for human food or animal feed to produce liquid and gaseous fuels (unless they have already fulfilled their food purpose).

Projects involving the production of food and drink are out of scope. However, projects may address the production of fine chemicals for use as food ingredients, for example flavourings and colourings. The IB Catalyst will not support research on natural products aimed at discovering new organisms or searching for new activity, but will support the translation of discoveries into a commercial activity.