Oils4my · Advanced microbial oil production for a sustainable circular economy: microalgae and oleaginous yeast consortium using low-cost carbon sources

The transition to renewable energies is urgent and necessary to reach independence from fossil fuels and consolidate the circular economy in the EU. Microbial oils are regarded as a promising raw material for sustainable production of bioproducts conventionally attained from petro-derivatives. However, microbial oil production viability depends mainly on cell performance and substrate cost. To cope with that, Oils4my will engineer and validate a high-performance novel platform capable of converting volatile fatty acids (VFAs) from anaerobic fermentation (AF) into microbial oils using oleaginous yeast and photosynthetic microorganisms. Oils4my will address three key scientific challenges: the viability of using VFAs from AF as a low-cost carbon source, understand the nutrient requirements of the proposed consortium to produce and accumulate lipids, and validate an integrated multi-stage process that enables high-performance microbial oil production at a technical and economic level. To overcome these challenges, first, an efficient separation of VFAs (from AF) through membrane filtration will be designed. VFAs will be then used as carbon sources for the microbial consortium and optimal parameters will be determined to produce and accumulate lipids in an oleaginous fermentation. As a green alternative, microbial oils will be extracted by enzymatic hydrolysis. The whole process will be validated in a multi-stage system to reach an oil content of 40-60% w/w and an oil extraction efficiency of 70%. Oils4my will demonstrate the feasibility of producing microbial oils using a waste stream derived from AF in a cost-effective process, contributing to the circular economy. The fellow, Dr. Marcela Levío-Raimán will conduct this action at the Institute of Sustainable Processes of the University of Valladolid under the supervision of Dr. Cristina González, with secondments at the University of Antwerp and Oleofat company and in collaboration with Forschungszentrum Jülich.