Developing Digital Technology for Healthcare Relevant Algal Biorenewables Manufacturing

Our aim is to apply state-of-the-art machine learning based digital technology recently developed in our research to facilitate large scale manufacturing of three photo-production processes for high-value biorenewables (i.e. Spirulina biomass, lutein, and arachidonic acid) production. Microalgal photo-production processes directly convert solar energy and CO2 into healthcare relevant commercial compounds, and are considered as a promising sustainable biotechnology for future industry. Sales of the three products investigated in this project have been estimated to be £1.13 billion by 2024. The global market demand of photo-production based chemicals has been expected to reach £35 billion by 2023, with an annual growth rate of 5.2%.

Developing digital technologies to construct automated biomanufacturing systems for valuable biomaterials production is of great importance to the UK's economy. The UK's Bioeconomy is currently worth ~£220 billion and is predicted to double by 2030. This sector also supports over 5 million jobs. In order for the UK to retain its leadership in industrial biotechnology and digital economy, it is crucial to develop cost-effective and self-sustained photo-production processes to reduce dependency on petroleum chemicals and fossil fuels. This will cement the UK as a world-pioneer in 'smart' manufacturing and disruptive biotechnology, with benefits not only in generating high quality products and services, but also boosting the national economy through the manufacture of healthcare relevant chemicals and creation of new job opportunities.

The two research groups at Xiamen University, China are national leading experts and have rich industrial experience in sustainable photo-production process design, scale-up, and optimisation. There are a range of experimental facilities and photobioreactors from lab scale to industrial scale available at their groups. We have established initial collaborations with the groups in China. To guarantee success, we will: (i) develop different modelling tools to quantify the three photo-production systems, and test their accuracy for process prediction and state estimation; (ii) integrate advanced online optimisation techniques into the models to form a digital framework for process monitoring and optimal control, and verifies the framework's performance through lab and pilot scale experiments; (3) update the digital framework and install it into the large scale manufacturing systems, meanwhile embed a deep learning technology into the digital framework to visualise process behaviour at different temporal and spatial space. Most of the digital technologies have been developed in the University of Manchester, and there are sufficient experimental resources and experimental facilities at Xiamen University. This international collaboration provides an excellent opportunity to link frontier digital technologies invented in the UK with advanced industrial biotechnologies developed in China, and will initiate the first thorough investigation in using novel digital technologies for photo-production process real-time monitoring and state estimation, online optimisation and control, and bioreactor visualisation. This project will boost collaborations between the University of Manchester and Xiamen University, and will significantly benefit the academics and PhD students involved in this project.

Outcome will be used as evidence to: i) apply for future long-term collaborative grants such as the Newton Institutional Links Grants, the High-level Foreign Experts Plan, and the UKRI-China R&D fund; ii) co-supervise PhD and MSc students to extend their knowledge in fields of experimentation and simulation; iii) secure PhD studentships from overseas companies and the China Scholarship Council; iv) bring advanced industrial skills into UK SME biotech companies to facilitate the domestic development of photo-production processes and industrial biotechnologies.

This project will have the potential to impact and strengthen the UK's current biotechnology sector, by constructing a novel digital framework to assist the automated manufacturing of sustainable bioprocesses. By combining advanced experimental technology and industrial experience from leading experts in this area, this project will elevate competitiveness of the UK's algal biomanufacturing industries with competitors in the US and Asia within the next few years. The group from Manchester will be responsible for steering the research direction and ensuring that the work will result in beneficial economic and societal impacts.

Economy: This project will develop innovative digital framework which are directly used to manufacture healthcare relevant high-value compounds including lutein, Spirulina biomass, and arachidonic acid. The global market demand of these three products has been projected to reach £1.13 billion by 2024, with an annual growth rate higher than 5%. Industrial biotechnology is of great importance to the UK's economy and this sector currently employs 14,000 people and generates £3.7 billion in revenue. Developing the proposed digital technology will strengthen the UK's leadership in sustainable production and contribute to wealth creation, inward investment, and new job opportunities. In addition, the group at Manchester has established collaborations with several UK algal SMEs, and the groups in China will invite overseas algal biotech companies to participate in the project. We will also source new commercial partners through the growing industrial membership of the EPSRC and BBSRC funded NIBB networks. Intellectual property will be protected and exploited by the University of Manchester's IP offices and Knowledge Exchange team to achieve maximum benefit for the UK economy and wider international society.

Society: Society will benefit from different aspects of the project, specifically development of sustainable bioprocess to manufacture a range of healthcare relevant products. The project will improve the technical competitiveness of UK's healthcare industry with regards to manufacture and sale of several algal high-value compounds. At a higher level, the project will also help the general UK bioprocess industry to reduce its reliance on fossil resources and avoid competition with food production. By importing advanced algal photo-production technology into the UK, this project will strengthen the resilience and security of UK's Bioeconomy. The UK's Bioeconomy currently supports ~5m jobs and is worth £220 billion, and has been estimated to double by 2030. Moreover, the entire global market of algae based healthcare products is expected to exceed £1.13 billion in 2024, with an annual growth rate of 5.2%. Thus, by constructing an automated digital framework to accelerate the manufacture and sale of UK's domestic healthcare relevant products, quality of the public life in the UK will be also benefited at a higher level.

In addition, all the applicants have established links with UK/international biotechnology enterprises along with their university, and have existing collaborations with academics and industrial partners in several developing countries. A number of activities will be conducted within the applicants' network to maximise research outcome and contribute to the national societal and commercial sector.