Current Research Project:

Investigating the Marine Fermentation Approach for the Sustainable Production of Biofuels

Dr Abdelrahman Zaky

Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh & Assistant Professor at Cairo University

A.Zaky@ed.ac.uk; A.Zaky@cu.edu.eg;

Current Research Focus:

Marine fermentation (MF) is a new approach using seawater, marine biomass and marine microorganisms are used in the fermentation process for the production of biofuels and other industrial biotechnology compounds. I initially proposed the concept of MF in 2014 to address high water footprint of bioethanol which ranges from 1,388 to 9,812 litres of water for each litre of ethanol produced. However, In order to make MF an efficient and economically viable process, it has to be integrated process for the production of multiple compounds. This project aims to apply the concept of MF for the integrated production of bioethanol and biodiesel from micro and macro marine algae (seaweed and cyanobacteria) using marine yeast and seawater. This project was designed to be part of a larger research theme named Integrated Marine Biorefinery (IMBR). IMBR aims to investigate MF concept for the integrated production of food, feed, biofuels, and high-value chemicals. Intensive investigation and research on marine environments could potentially reveal unique materials with exceptional properties for enhancing human life and wellbeing. Efficient utilisation of the marine environment can be achieved when more research is focused on marine elements (seawater, marine biomass and marine microorganisms) in all sectors of life science.

Selected publications on Marine Fermentation:

• A.S. Zaky, D. Greetham and C. Du (2019). Exploring the tolerance of marine yeast to inhibitory compounds for improving bioethanol production. Sustainable Energy & Fuels DOI: 10.1039/C9SE00029A

• A.S. Zaky*, D. Greetham, G.A. Tucker and C. Du (2018). The establishment of a marine focused biorefinery for bioethanol production using seawater and a novel marine yeast strain. Scientific Reports 8(1): 12127, doi:10.1038/s41598-018-30660-x

• D. Greetham, A.S. Zaky, Oyenike Makanjuola and C. Du* (2018). A brief review on bioethanol production using marine biomass, marine microorganism and seawater. Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry 14, 53-59.

• A.S. Zaky* (2017). Marine Fermentation, the Sustainable Approach for Bioethanol Production. EC Microbiology. ECO.01, 25-27.

• A.S. Zaky*, N. Pensupa, Á. Andrade-Eiroa, G.A. Tucker and C. Du (2017). A new HPLC method for simultaneously measuring salts, sugars, organic acids and alcohols in food samples. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis. 56, 25-33.

• A.S. Zaky, D. Greetham, E.J. Louis, G.A. Tucker and C. Du* (2016). A New Isolation and Evaluation Method for Marine Derived Yeast spp. with Potential Application in Industrial Biotechnology. Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology. 26 (11) 1891-1907

• A.S. Zaky*, G. Tucker and C. Du (2016). Use of marine yeast for the efficient production of bioethanol from seawater-based media. New Biotechnology 33:S52. (Abstract)