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Team:SCAU-China/Expert consultation
From 2014.igem.org
Expert Consultation
Taking feasibility and safety issue into consideration in our project, we made consulting appointments and discussed relevant topics with several experts. Here we show one of our interview records.
http://sourcedb.giec.cas.cn/zw/zjrck/201405/t20140514_4120304.html
He participated in the project supported by the national natural science foundation of China, the national "863" project, national ministry of science and technology, he published about 10 papers in the domestic core journals, and he already has applied for nearly 10 invention patents.
Section 1
Li Zhibing, a senior engineer in Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIEC), he is mainly engaged in the material anaerobic fermentation, the separation and purification research of biofuels.http://sourcedb.giec.cas.cn/zw/zjrck/201405/t20140514_4120304.html
He participated in the project supported by the national natural science foundation of China, the national "863" project, national ministry of science and technology, he published about 10 papers in the domestic core journals, and he already has applied for nearly 10 invention patents.
Q:Hello, Professor Li! I know that you used to engage in the research of organic waste gas and waste water treatment, now could you simply tell us about the challenges and problems of the current organic wastewater treatment? And what do you think is the fundamental way to solve these problems?
A:There are many different kinds of wastewater in China and the concentration of the emission sewage are very large. To wit, it is an environmental problem in the first place.
In majority industries in China, we only start treating after pollution happened, but in fact, the fundamental way of solving this should be found at the source of wastewater, advocating clean manufacturing. That is to say to optimize manufacturing techniques to reduce sewage emissions. And once we can't improve the technology, it will require us to carry out a new way to deal with specific pollutants at the next step.
Our previous industrial techniques lack the attention of environmental problems, and some developed countries’ failed production mode was treatment after pollution, if we want to avoid this situation happens in domestic, we should pay attention to environmental protection during the industrial production.
Our previous industrial techniques lack the attention of environmental problems, and some developed countries’ failed production mode was treatment after pollution, if we want to avoid this situation happens in domestic, we should pay attention to environmental protection during the industrial production.
Q:Professor Li, now you are mainly engaged in the biological anaerobic fermentation as well as the separation and purification of biofuels, could you talk about your opinion upon the anaerobic fermentation industrial production? What do you think of the application prospect of microbial anaerobic fermentation?
A:Microbial anaerobic fermentation has a wide range of industrial applications, such as the food industry, fermentation industry, biological engineering, and medicine preparation, so the application prospect of microbial fermentation is very broad, almost involving in every industry. We can get many necessaries from organic materials through microbial fermentation.
Q:Professor Li, can you simply talk about your view on the trend of today's energy development? And what will be the most possible substitution energy after fossil energy’s used up.
A:Today's energy mainly depends on the traditional fossil fuel, like petroleum, coal, etc. Because they are non-renewable, along with the continuous reduce of fossil energy, many countries, including China, are advocating the using of new energy, renewable energy and clean energy, such as nuclear energy. Other energy such as natural gas and liquid gas’s reserve are very large in our country, we just need to exploit them to replace traditional fossil fuels.
Microbial energy market in China:
In China's energy plan, microbial energy, belongs to biomass energy, is a kind of new energy. And now there are many kinds of new energy, including biomass energy, wind energy, the mixture of combustible ice, etc. Therefore, I personally think that it is more likely to have them all developing at the same time instead of one coming out ahead.
Microbial energy market in China:
In China's energy plan, microbial energy, belongs to biomass energy, is a kind of new energy. And now there are many kinds of new energy, including biomass energy, wind energy, the mixture of combustible ice, etc. Therefore, I personally think that it is more likely to have them all developing at the same time instead of one coming out ahead.
Q:Professor Li, have you heard about MFC? Our team has been working on MFC (Microbial Fuel Cell), a new kind of renewable energy generator that utilize microorganisms to metabolize organics, transforming bio-energy into electricity. This kind of device is a potential energy source, however, low power density and low availability are apparent defect of traditional MFCs. Our team are trying to solve this problem, at the same time, we are also trying to combine water desalination, trying to make a MDC (Microbial Desalination Cell). Through your understanding, can you simply talk about your opinions on our project?
A:MFC has already developed many years. To promote efficiency, our work here is mainly depending on remolding device and the improvement of the chemicals in the electrodes. And through gene manipulation to improve the efficiency of the MFC, it is still rare. In general, the hybrid strains’ electricity production will be much higher than a single strain, but if by means of genetic modification, we can make the efficiency of each stain improved and eventually the efficiency will be much higher after mixing. In addition, as a matter of fact, today's MFC mostly use Shewanella oneidensis, E.coli is not a common electrogenic strain. I personally think that this project is innovative, also has a certain scientific value, but if we want to apply in our daily life, it need a lot of researches and transformations.
Q:Professor Li, according to your research experience over years, do you have any messages for the later engaged in scientific research?
A: I think scientific research need solid theoretical knowledge and experimental skills, like literature reading ability, the ability of consulting literature materials, at the same time for seeking truth from facts, regardless of success or failure are the very good experience for reference.
Section 2
Dr. Yonggang Yang, an expert of Microbial Fuel Cell from Guangdong Institute of Microbiology.
Q: Dr. Yonggang Yang, we know that you interests in research of selecting high capacity microorganism from natural environment as Microbial Fuel Cells for electrogenic ability improvement. However, another approach by genetically modification for higher electric generation has been also been reported feasible. So we purpose to apply genetic modification in E.coli to enhance its performance as fuel cells in MFC. What do you think of the feasibility of our project?
A: I think this it is a potential measure. A number of researches have proved that some metabolic changes through genetic modification can improve electrogenic ability. They mainly focus on electron transport efficiency due to the fact that bacteria used in MFC generate low amount of electron as well as limiting electron transport pathway as they have cell walls. Therefore, to make change through genetic modification is a feasible mean to solve these problems.
Q: We have conducted several preliminary experiments using our MFC device. However, the data we collected is unstable as we repeats. Can you give us some suggestions on experiment conditions that we should notice during our experiments?
A: Tightness of your device is most important for MFC assays. Electricity generation have to be in anaerobic environment so any oxygen may influence the electrogenic result. On the other hand, larger surface of anode is helpful for biofilm formation, which means electrogenic bacteria attach the anode well facilitating high electron transport efficiency, so you may chose carbon cloth or carbon paper as anode of MFC.
Q: What data do you think we should collect during our experiment apart from electric potential?
A: The electrogenic characteristic various over time so I suggest you to monitor voltage and current changes using a recorder. Moreover, there are other instruments to detect the electric capacity of MFC such as Electrochemical Workstation.
