|
James Winterburn
Publications
Presentations
|
Biosurfactant production
|
PhD & PhD Plus Researcher
Start date: September 2007
Co-supervisor: Dr Aline Miller
Project: Production of biosurfactant by fermentation with integral foam fractionation
Sponsor: EPSRC CASE with Unilever
James's PhD & PhD Plus laid a foundation for the group's
"Biosurfactant process engineering and a
new era of white unit operations" project which he continued on as a
post-doctoral researcher within the group.
My research interest lies in the separation of microbially produced
surfactants, known as biosurfactants. Biosurfactants are capable of
fulfilling many of the roles for which petrochemical or oleochemical
surfactants are currently used. They also have unique properties that
can be utilised in innovative ways, including the improvement of
aerated foods and controlled drug delivery.
I produce biosurfactant as an extracellular fermentation product, meaning
the system is susceptible to problematic foaming. Through selective
removal of the surface active product it should be possible to minimise
foaming without the addition of antifoaming agents. To recover the
biosurfactant product a separation technique called foam fractionation
is used. Foam fractionation enriches surfactant solutions via
absorbance to a gas liquid interface and can increase surfactant
concentration by an order of magnitude.
To characterise the crude fermentation broth I use several methods
including; HPLC to determine biosurfactant concentration, dynamic
surface tension measurements to investigate competitive adsorption of
different surfactants and multiple light scattering to measure foam
stability.
Currently I'm designing a novel
process in which foam fractionation is integrated as a parallel unit
operation, connected to the fermenter via inlet and outlet ports. The
idea is to strip biosurfactant from the culture medium as it is
produced, increasing the efficiency of biosurfactant production.
  
Measuring bubble sizes in a flowing foam
Publications:
Winterburn, JB, Martin, PJ. Foam mitigation and exploitation in biosurfactant production. Biotechnology Letters, 43, 187-195. Winterburn, JB, Russell, AB, Martin, PJ (2011). Integrated recirculating foam fractionation for the continuous recovery of biosurfactant from fermenters.Biochemical Engineering Journal, 54, 132-139.
[download pdf 0.6 MB] Winterburn, JB, Russell, AB, Martin, PJ (2011). Characterisation of HFBII biosurfactant production and foam fractionation with and without antifoaming agents. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, 90, 911-920.
[download pdf 0.3 MB] Martin, PJ, Dutton, HM, Winterburn, JB, Baker, S, Russell, AB (2010). Foam fractionation with reflux. Chemical Engineering Science, 65, 3825-3835.
[download pdf 0.9 MB] Winterburn, JB, Martin, PJ (2008). Mechanisms of ultrasound foam interactions. Asia-Pacific Journal of Chemical Engineering, 4, 184-190.
[download pdf - 0.5 MB]
Presentations:
Winterburn, JB, Martin, PJ, Russell, AB. Production of biosurfactant by fermentation with integral foam fractionation. Poster presented at the CIKTN Associates Event, March 2009, York, UK. Awarded third prize in poster competition.
[download pdf - 2.9 MB] Winterburn, JB, Martin, PJ. Biosurfactant foam separation. Poster presented at the IChemE Biochemical Engineering Subject Group Young Researchers Meeting, January 2008, London, UK.
[download pdf - 1.1 MB] Winterburn, JB, Baker, S, Martin, PJ. Biosurfactants: Efficient production and applications. Winner of IChemE sponsorship competition to present at the 100th AIChE Annual Meeting, November 2008, Philadelphia, USA.
[download pdf - 0.5 MB]
|
