Winter Course "Green Strategies for the Recovery of Critical Raw Materials Using Microbial Biotools"
From 8 to 12 January, 2024, the Winter Course "Green Strategies for the Recovery of Critical Raw Materials Using Microbial Biotools" was held at the University of Coimbra.
This initiative was led by the MicroEnvTec Team, CEMMPRE Group B, coordinated by Romeu Francisco and Margarida Mota (Department of Life Sciences of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Coimbra). This course was part of the "BIORECOVER - Development of an innovative sustainable strategy for selective biorecover of critical raw materials from Primary and Secondary sources" project, which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 821096.
The course saw the active participation of 16 students with different academic backgrounds (Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Biology, Biomedical Engineering or Biomedicine) from Portuguese, English, Spanish and Brazilian higher education institutions. The course was divided into different modules, both theoretical and practical:
1. "Different technologies and their applications for the characterisation of microbial communities associated with critical raw materials", lectured by Lorrie Maccario (Kobenhavns Universitet, Denmark);
2. "Hands-on workshop R-coding for the analyses of amplicon sequencing dataset", also lectured by Lorrie Maccario (Kobenhavns Universitet, Denmark);
3. "Biomining - general lecture on biomining, history and future applications, microorganisms, adaptations to acid/metals", lectured by Mark Dopson (Linneuniversitetet, Sweden);
4. "Applications of biomining to wastes and circular economy, with a focus on BIORECOVER project", also lectured by Mark Dopson (Linneuniversitetet, Sweden);
5. "Explaining lab and a high-resolution pH demonstration", lectured by Nathan van Wyk (Linneuniversitetet, Sweden);
6. "PGMs uses, supply and demand. PGM recycling from secondary sources and its importance", lectured by Steve Bennett and Barbara Breeze (Johnson Matthey PLC, United Kingdom);
7. "Biotools for the recovery of metals using Biopolymers", lectured by Paula Morais, Ana Paula Chung and Rita Branco (University of Coimbra, Portugal);
8. "Future frontiers in microbiology for the metals industry", lectured by Sam Whittlesey (LGI Consulting, France);
9. "Sustainability of bioprocesses for metal recovery", lectured by Alvaro Braña (CETIM – Fundación Centro Tecnológico de Investigación Multisectorial, Spain).