PhD defense of Pravesh Tamang: How can bioplastics be obtained from wastewater?

03/10/2022

Members of the examination board and doctoral student: PD Dr.-Ing. Jörg Dietrich; Prof. Dr. -Ing. Heidrun Steinmetz; Pravesh Tamang; Prof. Dr.-Ing. Regina Nogueira; Prof. Dr.-Ing. Prof. Dr.-Ing. Uwe Haberlandt

On February 7th, 2022, Mr. Pravesh Tamang successfully defended his doctoral thesis on the "Production of polyhydroxyalkanoates from wastewater with microbial mixed cultures" and received an overall grade of "very good".

In 2016, Mr. Tamang from the internationally recognized Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) joined our team to write his master's thesis under the supervision of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Regina Nogueira. He continued his research on the production of bioplastic polyhydroxyalkanoates from wastewater as part of his doctoral thesis. Mr. Tamang's doctoral research was funded by Indian Council of Agricultural Research, India.

The research results of Mr. Tamang are described in the following four publications:

Tamang, P., Arndt, C., Bruns-Hellberg, J., Nogueira, R., (2021): Polyhydroxyalkanoates production from industrial wastewaters using a mixed culture enriched with Thauera sp.: Inhibitory effect of the wastewater matrix. Environ. Technol. Innov. Environmental Technology & Innovation 21, 101328. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eti.2020.101328

Bhalerao, A., Banerjee, R., & Nogueira, R. (2020). Continuous cultivation strategy for yeast industrial wastewater-based polyhydroxyalkanoate production. Journal of bioscience and bioengineering, 129(5), 595-602. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiosc.2019.11.006

Tamang, P., Bhalerao, A., Rosenwinkel, K.H., Nogueira, R., Arndt, C., (2020): Ein integrierter Ansatz zur Biopolymerproduktion aus Abwasser. Wasser und Abfall 22, 19–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s35152-020-0228-3

Nogueira, R., Tamang, P., Banerjee, R., Arndt, C. (2019): Waste to resource: Biopolymer production from industrial wastewater, presented at BioMAT 2019.

Tamang, P., Banerjee, R., Köster, S., Nogueira, R. (2019): Comparative study of polyhydroxyalkanoates production from acidified and anaerobically treated brewery wastewater using enriched mixed microbial culture. Journal of Environmental Science. 78, 137–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jes.2018.09.001

Mr. Tamang has been an essential member of our team during his time at ISAH. We wish him all the best and a lot of success in his private and professional life.