Consortium Awarded Significant EU Grant Funding to Advance Butanol Fermentation
Green Biologics Ltd. has been awarded grant funding from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), the UK’s innovation agency for project REACTIF. The aim is to develop advanced Clostridia strains for n-butanol production using metabolic engineering and then demonstrate improved fermentation performance and economics at pilot scale with a woody (cellulosic) feedstock. The project is a collaboration with leading academic experts in solventogenic Clostridia at the University of Nottingham (Professor Nigel Minton), Georg-August-University Göttingen (Professor Rolf Daniel) and the University of Ulm (Professor Peter Dürre). The final collaborator is Weyland AS, a Norwegian company developing advanced hydrolysis technology for woody feedstocks.
The project has been approved by the European Research Area for Industrial Biotechnology (ERA-IB) and funding is supplied by regional funding bodies. The programme aims to reduce fragmentation across national research efforts in Industrial Biotechnology and foster innovation, creativity and collaboration across Europe. To date, two joint calls for proposals have resulted in 18 highly innovative research projects with a total budget over €20M. The REACTIF projects costs are of €2.2M with grant funding of €1.7M split across the partners. The project duration is 36 months and commenced on the 1st May 2013.