Team:UCL/Project/About
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<p>In the textile industry today, annual production of dyestuff amounts to millions of tons globally. Azo dyes represent two thirds of this value, a majority of which find their way to wastewater. Our idea is to conceive an integrated end-of-pipe method for detoxifying effluent streams of dye factories. The goal is to achieve a two-stage regimen in sequence to ensure optimal conditions for the degradation of azo dyes within a batch bioreactor system. This would be an attractive and effective approach to dealing with azo dye contamination of the environment. As a financial incentive, we are also looking at maximizing the profitability of various potential breakdown products. As a lucrative continuous-process alternative, we are investigating the application of microbial fuel cell technology to an aerobic bioreactor system, for simultaneously detoxifying azo dyes and generating electricity. Considering the potential for scalability, this method would present various economic and environmental advantages for industries that generate large amounts of dyestuff. This could also be spinned to become a modular bioprocess method for wastewater treatment of other toxic, normally recalcitrant chemicals. </p> | <p>In the textile industry today, annual production of dyestuff amounts to millions of tons globally. Azo dyes represent two thirds of this value, a majority of which find their way to wastewater. Our idea is to conceive an integrated end-of-pipe method for detoxifying effluent streams of dye factories. The goal is to achieve a two-stage regimen in sequence to ensure optimal conditions for the degradation of azo dyes within a batch bioreactor system. This would be an attractive and effective approach to dealing with azo dye contamination of the environment. As a financial incentive, we are also looking at maximizing the profitability of various potential breakdown products. As a lucrative continuous-process alternative, we are investigating the application of microbial fuel cell technology to an aerobic bioreactor system, for simultaneously detoxifying azo dyes and generating electricity. Considering the potential for scalability, this method would present various economic and environmental advantages for industries that generate large amounts of dyestuff. This could also be spinned to become a modular bioprocess method for wastewater treatment of other toxic, normally recalcitrant chemicals. </p> | ||
Revision as of 13:52, 17 September 2014
About Our Project
Human Practice Team
The Problem: Azo Dyes in the Environment
Azo dyes are the main synthetic colourant used in the industrial manufacture of a wide range of products such as clothing, upholstery, cosmetics, tattoo ink and more. These dyes are widely known to be safe and stable forms of synthetic colourants, however, when they are broken down in the guts of organisms they take on dangerous properties. In industry, leftover dye effluent is often not properly disposed of, or removed, during water treatment, which results in the accumulation of azo dyes in water bodies. It is at this point that these excess dyes are ingested, broken down, and excreted as products that have been found to be mutagenic and carcinogenic. Despite such toxicity, little to no effort has been made to dispose of these leftover azo dyes more responsibly.
The Solution: Goodbye AzoDyes, UCL iGEM Team 2014
Our iGEM project 2014 will work towards controllably degrading and detoxifying the excess azo-dye effluent at the source - the textile factories - by filtering the different toxic breakdown products elsewhere, before they ever reach the water systems. Our aim was to then convert these products into innoculous, and potentially useful, chemicals that can be used in other processes. We achieved this goal by creating an enhanced azo-dye decolourising organism by introducing the genes for three enzymes related to the degradation of these dyes: azoreductase, laccase, and lignin peroxidase into a host E.coli cell.
Implementation in Industry
In the textile industry today, annual production of dyestuff amounts to millions of tons globally. Azo dyes represent two thirds of this value, a majority of which find their way to wastewater. Our idea is to conceive an integrated end-of-pipe method for detoxifying effluent streams of dye factories. The goal is to achieve a two-stage regimen in sequence to ensure optimal conditions for the degradation of azo dyes within a batch bioreactor system. This would be an attractive and effective approach to dealing with azo dye contamination of the environment. As a financial incentive, we are also looking at maximizing the profitability of various potential breakdown products. As a lucrative continuous-process alternative, we are investigating the application of microbial fuel cell technology to an aerobic bioreactor system, for simultaneously detoxifying azo dyes and generating electricity. Considering the potential for scalability, this method would present various economic and environmental advantages for industries that generate large amounts of dyestuff. This could also be spinned to become a modular bioprocess method for wastewater treatment of other toxic, normally recalcitrant chemicals.
Human Practice
Keep an eye on this space as we have lots of fun things in the works coming up soon!