Microalgae-Based Biofuels and Bioproducts

Raúl Muñoz completed his Doctoral Thesis “Algal-bacterial photobioreactors for the degradation of toxic organic pollutants” at the Dept. of Biotechnology of Lund University under the supervision of Prof. Bo Mattiasson and Dr. Benoit Guieysse in June 2005. Raúl Muñoz successfully competed in the Spanish National Program “Juan de la Cierva” and joined the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology at UVa in Nov 2005, with a research focused on biological off-gas treatment of Volatile Organic Compounds. In February 2007, Raúl Muñoz successfully competed in the Spanish National Program “Ramón y Cajal”. In July 2007, the applicant carried out a 3 months research stay at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). The applicant started 5 years senior researcher contract Ramon y Cajal in January 2008 at UVa, which represented the consolidation in the Dept. of the biological gas treatment and microalgae-based wastewater treatment research lines. In 2009, he carried out a 3 months research stay at UNSW (Australia) at the laboratory of Prof. Richard Stuetz, and a 1 month research stay at Universidad Mayor de San Simon (Bolivia). In 2013 and 2016, Raúl Muñoz also conducted a 6 and 1 months research stay at the Laboratories of Dr. Sergio Revah (UAM-Cuajimalpa, México), and in 2014 a 3 months research stay at Universidad de la Frontera (Chile). Today, Raúl Muñoz is Associate professor at the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology of Valladolid University. Over the past 10 years, he has collaborated with the leading groups in the fields of gas treatment and microalgae-based wastewater treatment and has been Principal Investigator in over 25 R&D projects. Dr. Muñoz has also published over 134 works published in scientific journals (H index of 34), co-authored 13 chapters in internationally published books, and supervised more than 40 post doctoral researchers, PhD and Master thesis students. Cristina Gonzalez-Fernandez received her PhD degree in Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology at the University of Valladolid (2008). She carried out her doctoral thesis in the field of livestock wastes treatment for the removal of organic matter by means of mechanical and photosynthetic oxygenation on the liquid matrix and biogas production on the solid matrix. Previously to that, she worked at the Environmental Engineering Department in the University of Cincinnati (USA) where she also obtained a Master on Environmental Science (2005). She got a postdoc position at the Biotechnology Lab in the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (LBE-INRA, France) to work on the optimization of biogas production using microalgae. Nowadays, her research is focused on the recovery of carbon from wastes via biotechnological means. She is co-author of around 100 scientific publications and reviewer of international journals. Additionally, she has been involved in European and national funded research projects, as well as projects with private companies. She has supervised 5 PhD Thesis, and 20 Master Thesis and Final Year Projects. Today, Cristina González is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Environmental Technology of Valladolid University.

1. Photobioreactors for the production of microalgae 2. Heterotrophic and mixotrophic microalgae cultivation 3. Microalgae cultivation in wastewater 4. Applications of genome-scale metabolic models to microalgae and cyanobacteria production systems 5. Harvesting of microalgae: overview of process options and their strengths and drawbacks 6. Cell Disruption Technologies 7. Biogas production from microalgae 8. Breakthroughs in bio-alcohol production from microalgae: Solving the hurdles 9. Biohydrogen production from microalgae 10. Biodiesel from Microalgae 11. Pyrolysis of microalgae for fuel production 12. Biogas upgrading using algal-bacterial processes 13. Synthetic biology of cyanobacteria for production of biofuels and high-value products 14. Biorefinery of algae: Technical and economic considerations 15. Microalgal proteins for food and feed 16. Microalgal Fatty acids-from harvesting till extraction 17. Cyanobacterial toxins as a high value added product 18. Trends in Red Biotechnology: Microalgae for Pharmaceutical Applications 19. Extraction of added-value compounds from microalgae 20. Economics of Microalgae Cultivation 21. Environmental impacts of mass-scale algae cultivation