Do you think, in the future, biotechnologies will play a role in sewage sludge treatment?
"There is obviously a plenty of research in that field.There are pre industrial processes already working. So biotechnologies will surely play a much more important role in the future in sewage sludge treatment processes."
Environemental metals concentrations has become an issue. Is there any in biotechnologies solutions to face this problem?
""Since long ago, phytoremediation process are known, such processes allow metals accumulation in plants,or bioleaching processes which use micro-organisms in order to remove polluting metals from soils.All of this will surely develop thanks to certain actual research which allow to expect to be more specific and efficient in metals recovery."
What is the interest of the iGEM Aix Marseille 2016 team process?
"The interest in the process you plan to develop is precisely to have something selective and technologically sophisticated,and it will work with a tremendous efficiency at least I hope so! Your process will probably allow to reach very high treatment rates which is the purpose with very polluting metals"
Are the techniques employed by the iGEM 2016 AMU team adaptable from laboratory to an industrial scale (centrifugation,incineration, filtration) ?
"Of course all laboratory systems have a corresponding process in industry. This means that each single laboratory operation can be easily transferred to industrial scale, knowing that all operations has a cost. and the aim of process engineering is precisely to reduce those costs to enable the transfer to industry."
Does the iGEM 2016 AMU team process seem to be able to integrate in current sewage sludge treatment systems?
"All treatment systems work with unitary operations. This means that the process is split in parts representing a single operation, and each operation is rated and evaluated for itself. Given that, it is possible to find a point where a biological process could be inserted, especially a process like the one developed here."
From a synthetic biological perspective, does the iGEM 2016 AMU team process seem relevant (use a siderophore, use biosorption...) ?
"Yes, siderophore utilization will allow a very specific metal recovery concerning not only platinum, but all other polluting metals that can be found in effluents. Moreover, we can consider to perform an enrichment step with siderohpore import by the filamentous bacterium you plan to use,and all of this allows to recover and value the extracted metals."
The iGEM 2016 AMU team focuses only on platinum recovery. But do you think this kind of process could be used for other metals recovery in the future?
"This process is especially versatile, and should allow to recover specifically all metals thant can be found in effluents,and should lead to a specific valorization of all types of contaminant, and to the global treatment of effluents which would enable to discharge them in environment with no ecological problems."
