Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

<p>Bioproducts, biofuels &amp; bioenergy from renewable materials are topics of growing importance in Canada, addressing the renewable fuels &amp; bioproducts agenda, but also with the aim of strengthening our forestry and agricultural industries. The Renewable Biomass Research Team at Queen&rsquo;s has taken a leading role in the development of algal wastewater treatment systems &amp; algal biofuel technologies, as well as the modification of biosourced material for environmental &amp; materials applications in Canada. The multidisciplinary nature of our group allows us to address challenges on the periphery of our respective disciplines as an integrated effort. However, this research requires larger volumes of biomass &amp; a high throughput analytical system for a fast &amp; accurate determination &amp; classification of products.<br /> <br /> The continuous flow centrifuge is a special instrument designed for the recovery of suspended solids in large volume solutions. Unlike with traditional centrifuges, the solution can be fed continuously into a moving rotor. The solids are extracted, while the solution flows through the outlet. It will allow the processing of hundreds of liters of biomass suspensions in a fraction of the time &amp; labor required with a conventional centrifuge. This, in turn, will be critically enabling with respect to the scaling up of biomass-based processes developed at Queen's. The equipment will allow the researchers to investigate scalability of biomass production &amp; the properties of the produced or functionalized biomass, bioproducts &amp; biofuels by: (i) facilitating the processing of high throughput biomass samples; (ii) enabling the quantification &amp; characterization of the biomass, bioproducts &amp; biofuels; &amp; (iii) allowing for the recovery of large samples of biomass for further downstream processing &amp; testing that will meet the feedstock needs of the research team, particularly for the development of novel algal extraction/harvesting approaches &amp; functionalization of biosourced-polymers for environmental &amp; materials applications. These research activities are being considerably limited by the availability of the required biomass feedstocks.<br /> <br /> FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy allows the fast &amp; reliable analysis of solid &amp; liquid samples. It does not require complex sample preparation &amp; can be used for the direct &amp; fast characterization of biomass &amp; co-products. This equipment detects specific chemical functional groups, leading to the fast identification &amp; quantification of lipids, polymers &amp; other molecules of interest. Tracking these molecules at different stages of sample processing will enable the optimization of culturing, collection, modification &amp; processing conditions.<br /> <br /> These equipment items are urgently needed &amp; once available will be heavily used by three different departments at Queen&rsquo;s, allowing for training of 15-20 Highly Qualified Personnel per year.</p>