Yuta Era
PhD Student
I joined the Horsfall Group as a PhD student in 2018, after earning my Masters degree in Earth Resource Engineering at Kyushu University in Japan. I worked on microbial arsenic removal from acid mining drainage and now I am truly excited to combine cutting-edge synthetic biology with my background of biohydrometallurgy.
The UK and Japan are both running out of natural metal resources and I believe our research would provide an alternative solution for a better, more circular, economy in the future.
In my spare time, I enjoy exploring the beautiful city of Edinburgh and sampling local cuisine such as haggis.
Public Abstract
Today, our lives are greatly supported by metal-based products. However, the availability of some metals from conventional mining operations is becoming limited due to the constant increase in demand. Urban mining could supply metal wastes as alternative resources by feeding them back into our society as products. Although this is a promising way to secure future metal resources, developing financial and ecologically feasible processes is still a scientific challenge. The Horsfall group is using novel biotechnology to establish greener processes to efficiently recover metals from urban mines such as waste car batteries and industrial catalysts. My project focuses on the development of genetic tools that allow us to enhance the ability of microorganisms for nanoparticle synthesis and practical uses for the metals recovered.
Scientific Abstract
Anaerobic biological processes already play key roles in our society especially in energy, pharmaceutical, agricultural, mining and recycling industries. However, the establishment of more controllable microbial action is a requirement to expand the applicability and feasibility of these processes. Synthetic biology shows great potential to achieve this but the lack of genetic engineering toolkits for anaerobic microorganisms hinders the research progress greatly.
One of the most crucial and potent anaerobic biological processes today is the recovery of precious metals. By using microbial respiration mechanisms, we can convert ionic platinum and palladium into highly catalytic metal nanoparticles. One aspect of my research investigates the potential applications of these biogenic nanoparticles in chemical reactions.