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From 2013hs.igem.org

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Project abstract

12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK. Collection costs undermine the benefit of paper recycling. The UCL Academy iGEM team propose an alternative solution, a home system that converts cellulose into glucose and allows the up-cycling of paper into a commercial product: biofuels + PHBs (bio plastics).

We decided to construct a two stage apparatus containing two reactors. The first reactor contains cellulolytic enzymes that output glucose and allows monitoring of the production levels. A filtered feed from the first reactor enters the second, which contains Cupriavidus metallidurans, a PHB producing organism. Ideally we would like both parts to be contained in one stage reactor where all organisms and enzymes would be placed in one compartment. This would be more challenging as intermediate product, glucose in this case, would be harder to monitor.