Kick-off meeting of CELBICON, a European project for bioplastics produced from CO2

The CELBICON project (Cost-effective CO₂ conversion into chemicals via combination of Capture, ELectrochemical and BIochemicalCONversion technologies) was launched on 14-15 March 2016 at the Polytechnic University of Turin (Italy), the coordinating site of this new project from the EU Horizon 2020 program. The Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas (CIB) from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) participates in this project which is granted with € 5.4 million. Work on this project at the CIB will be directed by Dr.Auxiliadora Prieto, Head of the Polymer Biotechnology Group in the Department of Environmental Biology. The CELBICON project is a collaboration between 6academic and 7 industrial partners from 7 countries (Germany (4), Italy (3),The Netherlands (2), Spain (1), France (1), Austria (1) and Switzerland (1)). The objective of CELBICON is to establish three platforms for the capture and conversion of CO₂ (carbon dioxide) by electrochemical and biochemical technologies. For its part, the CIB will participate in the platform that integrates the production of bioplastics (PHA,polyhydroxyalkanoates) by the biotransformation of CO₂. The CO₂consuming bacterium Rhodospirillum rubrumnaturally produces bioplastics and will be optimized for the CELBICON project by Systems and Synthetic Biology based strategies. The goal of CELBICON is tostem atmospheric carbon emissions by recycling CO₂ through biotransformation into bioplastics and other value-added products such isoprene and lactic acid. In this sense, CELBICON will support the EU´s target to reduce CO₂ emissionsby 2020.

More information at www.celbicon.org