Chemical and Biological Engineering

Group Overview

The Chemical and Biological Engineering Research Group (CBERG) brings together a multidiscipline team of researchers who are working at the interface between chemical engineering and the life sciences. The team have a broad range of experience focussed on processing, characterising, scale up, scale out and optimising chemical and biological systems. CBERG are particularly focussed on industrial engagement and have a long history of translation into industry through collaborative projects, internships, student placements, consultancy and spin out companies.

Staff

Dr Chris Wright

Dr Yon Ju-Nam

Dr Jesús Javier Ojeda

Research Areas

The multidisciplinary research on a broad range of applications looks to understand fundamental principles of a system and use this to optimise the process. The research adopts a holistic and multi-scale approach to enable control in systems such as separation processes, bacterial contamination and medical device fabrication.

Precision Fermentation
Bacterial biofilms
Antimicrobials
Biomaterials
Biofouling
Biocorrosion
Nanoparticles
Electrospinning
Membrane Separation
Biochemical Engineering
Atomic Force Microscopy

Pilot scale electrospinning of prototype wound dressings

Device for the bed side delivery of polymeric fibres for wound dressings

Fermentation equipment for production of bioactives such as enzymes

Research Equipment and Skills

Microbial handling
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)
2L, 15L and 100L fermenters
Analytical chemistry
Lab and Pilot scale electrospinning
Centrifugation

Industrial Collaboration

The Chemical and Biological Engineering Research Group are keen to collaborate with industry on research projects and offer consultancy and research services. We have contributed as partners or sub-contractors on Innovate UK grant initiatives such as SMART awards.
We organise industrial student placements and internships to strengthen academic-company relationships.
Recent industrial collaborations include Volac, First Milk, 3M, Hybrisan and British Aerospace.

Impact, Innovation and Engagement

Recent research has led to patents within areas including collagen products and processing as well as electrospinning scale out.
The research team has grown by the award of two Royal Academy of Engineering Entrepreneurship Fellowships for commercialisation of the research.
We have a number of companies who have spun out of the research these include ProColl, Corryn Biotechnologies and Membranology.
The research of the group has featured in well received impact case studies in the last two research exercises (REF 2014 and REF 2021) Membrane design for industry and healthcare - Swansea University.

Publications

Nanofiber Membranes for Medical, Environmental, and Energy Applications CRC Press. ISBN-13: 978-0815387039
Membrane Modification: Technology and Applications. CRC Press. ISBN-13: 978-1439866351
Membrane Fabrication: Principles, Optimization and Applications. CRC Press. ISBN-13: 9781482210453.