Detta självständiga arbete utfördes på kraftvärmeanläggningen Affärsverken AB i Karlskrona med syfte att minska stadens vattenförbrukning, minimera utsläpp i naturen och bidra till globala miljömål. Se bilagor (7–10) för mer information.Projektet omfattade flera perspektiv, inklusive tekniker för att rena rökgaskondensat och de ekonomiska aspekterna av ett sådant projekt. Sammanfattningsvis syftar projektet till att förbättra effektiviteten och hållbarheten i kraftvärmeverket. Studiebesöket på kraftvärmeverket i Karlskrona har gett information om flödet av kommunalt vatten och rökgaskondensat mängden som används för att bestämma återvinningen av vatten och mängden rökgaskondensat som behövs. Detta kommer att användas för att utvärdera teknikerna för att rena rökgaskondensatet och de ekonomiska aspekterna av projektet.Målet med projektet var att minska stadens vattenkonsumtion på kraftvärmeverket genom att använda rökgaskondensat istället för stadsvatten. Detta minskar kostnaden för råvatten och bidrar till att uppnå globala miljömål. Konstruktion och installation kan kombineras med befintliga anläggningar, utrustning och ekonomiska faktorer som tas i beaktning vid valet av lösning. En hållbar och kostnadseffektiv lösning bör väljas för att minska stadens vattenkonsumtion utan att påverka produktiviteten. / This independent project was conducted at the combined heat and powerplant (Affärsverken AB) in Karlskrona with the aim of reducing city waterconsumption, minimizing emissions into the environment, and contributingto global environmental goals, see appendix (7-10). The project included several perspectives, including technologies for cleaning flue gas condensateand the economic aspects of such a project. In summary, the project aimed toimprove the efficiency and sustainability of the combined heat and powerplant.The study visit to the combined heat and power plant in Karlskrona has provided information on the flow of municipal water and the amount of flue gascondensate used to determine the recovery of water and the amount of fluegas condensate needed. This will be used to evaluate the technologies forcleaning the flue gas condensate and the economic aspects of the project.The conclusion of the project was to be able to reduce city water consumption at cogeneration plants by using flue gas condensate instead of city water.This reduces the cost of city water and contributes to achieving environmental global goals. Construction and installation can be combined with existingfacilities and equipment, and economic factors should be taken into accountwhen choosing a solution. Sustainable and cost-effective solution should bechosen to reduce city water consumption without affecting productivity.

Yes / Lichenicolous (lichen-dwelling) fungi have been extensively researched taxonomically over many years, and phylogenetically in recent years, but the biology of the relationship between the invading fungus and the lichen host has received limited attention, as has the effects on the chemistry of the host, being difficult to examine in situ. Raman spectroscopy is an established method for the characterization of chemicals in situ, and this technique is applied to a lichenicolous fungus here for the first time. Xanthoriicola physciae occurs in the apothecia of Xanthoria parietina, producing conidia at the hymenium surface. Raman spectroscopy of apothecial sections revealed that parietin and carotenoids were destroyed in infected apothecia. Those compounds protect healthy tissues of the lichen from extreme insolation and their removal may contribute to the deterioration of the apothecia. Scytonemin was also detected, but was most probably derived from associated cyanobacteria. This work shows that Raman spectroscopy has potential for investigating changes in the chemistry of a lichen by an invading lichenicolous fungus. / This work was completed while D.L.H. was in receipt of an award from the Ministerio de Economica y Competitividad of Spain (Proyectos CGL 2014-55542-P).

Volatility of oil prices along with major concerns about climate change, oil supply security and depleting reserves have sparked renewed interest in the production of biofuels and biochemicals. While the carbohydrate portion of edible crops is currently used as the primary feedstock in the biological production of fuels and chemicals, the availability of fatty acid (FA)-rich feedstocks and recent progress in the development of oil-accumulating organisms have drawn the attention to FAs as an attractive alternative. However, microbial platforms to enable this were nearly absent. To this end, we engineered native and heterologous fermentative pathways in E. coli to enable the efficient synthesis of fuels and chemicals from FAs. The current de facto strategy for the synthesis of non-native products in model organisms is He terologous M etabolic E ngineering (HeME), which consists of recruiting foreign genes from native producers. However, the relative incompatibility of the heterologous pathways with the host metabolism may be considered a drawback. As an alternative approach, the HoME ( Ho mologous M etabolic E ngineering) strategy that we propose overcomes this limitation by harnessing the metabolic potential of the host strain. HoME aims at reconstructing heterologous pathways to enable biosynthesis of non-natural products by identifying and assembling native functional surrogates. Implementation of both HeME and HoME strategies in the context of fuels and chemicals biosynthesis has usually been directed to the conversion of feedstocks constituents into a specific product. However, we demonstrated a novel metabolic platform based on a functional reversal of the fatty acid catabolic pathway (β-oxidation) as a means of synthesizing a wide array of products with various chain lengths and functionalities.

Sustainable waste treatment and lignin development strategies targeted for biorefineries will benefit industry, consumers, and the environment. This dissertation demonstrates the feasibility of a novel biochemical pathway capable of converting sugars and lignin sourced from biorefinery waste streams into microbial oils suitable for biodiesel, cosmetic, and biopharmaceutical applications. This biochemical pathway also presents interesting avenues for the commercial production of higher-value intermediate metabolites such as catechol, protocatechuate, pyruvate, and succinate. Alternatively, this dissertation also demonstrates a unique polymerization strategy for lignin that can be adopted towards the production of green polymeric biomaterials. Overall, these strategies jointly present intriguing routes for lignin valorization.

In this paper, biochemicals with the potential to substitute fossil reference chemicals in Germany were identified using technological readiness and substitution potential criteria. Their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were quantified by using life cycle assessments (LCA) and their economic viabilities were determined by comparing their minimum selling prices with fossil references’ market prices. A bottom up mathematical optimization model, BioENergy OPTimization (BENOPT) was used to investigate the GHG abatement potential and the corresponding abatement costs for the biochemicals up to 2050. BENOPT determines the optimal biomass allocation pathways based on maximizing GHG abatement under resource, capacity, and demand constraints. The identified biochemicals were bioethylene, succinic acid, polylactic acid (PLA), and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA). Results show that only succinic acid is economically competitive. Bioethylene which is the least performing in terms of economics breaks even at a carbon price of 420 euros per ton carbon dioxide equivalent (€/tCO2eq). With full tax waivers, a carbon price of 134 €/tCO2eq is necessary. This would result in positive margins for PHA and PLA of 12% and 16%, respectively. From the available agricultural land, modeling results show high sensitivity to assumptions of carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration in biochemicals and integrated biochemicals production. GHG abatement for scenarios where these assumptions were disregarded and where they were collectively taken into account increased by 370% resulting in a 75% reduction in the corresponding GHG abatement costs.