Team:Exeter/Notebook/July7
Tuesday, 7 July
We had a meeting to discuss potential avenues for calcium carbonate production we might want to go down.
In the meeting we discussed:
- CARP proteins (from the Paris 2017 team) and whether we could incorporate them into Ureolytic bacteria to increase rate of crystallisation in addition to precipitation.
- Further characterising the CARP protein roles as there are 4 types whose specific activity has not yet been established. This was deemed probably more effort than its worth as we can just add them all and they should function.
- Using an alternative approach to increase CaCO3 levels in Ureolytic bacteria. Instead of using a small RNA molecule (like Newcastle 2010) to increase urea levels, could we “up-regulate“ the urease gene directly using a plasmid?
- Co cultures as co-culturing Ureolytic bacteria and non Ureolytic bacteria produces more CaCO2 than independently
- Altering the environmental conditions (e.g. Magnesium and CARP concentration) in order to produce different forms of CaCO3 e.g. switch from calcite to aragonite or vaterite depending on which would be more appropriate for a specific application.
- Using alternative species to achieve MICCP (microbiology induced CaCO3 precipitation)
- Additional compounds such as hydroxyapatite in order to produce more useful materials e.g. calcite marine-based products with clinical applications (teeth and bone graft substitutes)
- Coccolithophores and their potential to produce hydroxyapatite
- Modelling techniques
- Using polysaccharides
- Ordering parts
- Photosynthetic based CaCO3 precipitation