Dr Bob Lovitt and Dr Darren Oatley-Radcliffe (College of Engineering) and Professor Kevin Flynne (College of Science) have received the grant for £300,000 from The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, (EPSRC).

The funding, announced by Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, will be used to support a number of 18-month feasibility studies that aim to advance core science towards manufacturing in diverse sectors including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, electronics and security.

Dr Lovitt’s project, in partnership with Viking Fish Farms Ltd began in April this year and will run for 18 months. It is entitled: Internally lit photobioreactors for enhanced product formation from algae using LED systems: Energy transformed into high value chemical products.

Dr Lovitt said: “This project will focus on the testing of novel flexible photobioreactor (PBR) design to enable the growth of algae for use in high value natural productssuch as pigments, antioxidants and omega 3 fatty acids, in highly controlled lighting environments.

“Algae are an incredibly diverse group of organisms that are of increasing importance scientifically and economically with the potential of providing sustainable efficient low carbon processes where carbon dioxide (from combustion gases) is converted to valuable organic chemicals that will not compete for food production or land use.

“However, large scale processes using these organisms are restricted by the need to use natural light which although is free, is unpredictable in intensity, quality and periodicity due to weather conditions.

“Natural light also restricts potential PBR geometries making the large scale operation of algae production and product formation problematic and unreliable and reducing the productivity of these systems. Internally lit PBRs could revolutionise this with the intensive production of high quality, high value algae and open up the field to exploitation using the tools of synthetic biology to develop the safe productive capacity in these systems.

“On the face of it, the investment and cost of internally lit PBRs are much higher than naturally lit systems. However, this can be more than compensated for by the potential advantages and benefits of growing and manipulating algae in highly controlled lighting environments.

“The sophisticated use of LED lighting also offers up exciting opportunities to control and monitor biochemical composition and product formation much of which is influenced by the quality and intensity of light.”