Role of environmental biotechnology in enabling transition from linear to circular economy in waste management

Sunday, January 31, 2021
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
On Zoom

Abstract

There is an increasing global interest in resource recovery from waste streams that is being driven not only by sustainability and environmental concerns, but also motivated by the potential for economic benefits. We are now entering a new era in waste management where waste is seen in the context of circular economy as a valuable resource.

The principal goal of my research at KAUST is to develop sustainable environmental biotechnologies that enable us to fully harness the metabolic potential of microbial communities for resource recovery (e.g., reclaimed water for reuse, energy, chemicals) from waste streams (e.g., wastewater, waste CO₂, food waste). We achieve this goal through interdisciplinary and collaborative-based research interconnecting science (e.g., electrochemistry, microbial ecology, and material science) and bioprocess engineering.

I joined KAUST in September of 2010 as an Assistant Professor and I established the Environmental Biotechnology group with a research program focusing on three areas: microbial electrochemical systems, anaerobic ammonium oxidation process, and aerobic granular sludge process. I was promoted to Associate Professor in July 2015.

In this talk, I will summarize our accomplishments over the past years in the following areas:

1. Microbial electrolysis for simultaneous treatment of wastewater with recourse recovery (reclaimed water for reuse and energy)
2. Microbial electrosynthesis for converting CO₂ to chemicals
3. Anaerobic ammonium oxidation process for energy neutral treatment of mainstream wastewater
4. Aerobic granular sludge process for energy-efficient decentralized wastewater treatment and reuse. Finally, I will briefly introduce our new research program on microbial chain elongation for converting high strength organic wastes such as food waste to medium chain carboxylic acids.

About the speaker

Pascal Saikaly is an associate professor of environmental science and engineering. He joined KAUST as an assistant professor in 2010 from the American University of Beirut, where he was an assistant professor since 2008. He received his B.Sc. in Biology and M.Sc. in Environmental Technology from the American University of Beirut. 

He received his Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2005 and continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow (2005-2007) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. He leads the Environmental Biotechnology group at KAUST.