What are the key issues in conducting LCA of bioenergy systems? What is the environmental sustainability status of second generation bioethanol? How much would the final results of biogenic carbon neutrality assumptions deviate from the true values based on a complete inventory? How to assess the impact…

Promotores: Prof.dr.G.R. de Snoo and Dr. R. Heijungs

The unit residue group, to which the present thesis is devoted, is defined using the norm-residue symbol, which Hilbert introduced into algebraic number theory in 1897.

The HARVEST project explores the dietary choices that our hominin ancestors and relatives made, by recovering information on what they consumed, and how factors like environmental variation, intrinsic biology, and development of food processing technologies could have influenced their decisions.

An algorithm is discussed to compute the exponential representation of principal units in a finite extension field F of the p-adic rationals.

Light-Harvesting Complex II (LHCII) is responsible for light absorption and excitation energy transfer in plants and photosynthetic algae, while in high light it undergoes conformational changes by which it quenches excitations to prevent photodamage.

Evolution acts via mutations in amino acid sequences. Substitution of essential amino acids leads to a nonfunctional protein. l.

Aspergillus niger is an important industrial producer of organic acids and enzymes producing large amounts of spent fungal biomass.

Solar energy is used by photosynthetic organisms to drive energy required cellular processes. Is absorbed by two groups of pigments, located in the LHCs.

Pectin is a plant cell wall polysaccharide made of mainly D-galacturonic acid (GA) subunits. The potency of the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger to naturally secrete high amounts of pectinases to degrade pectin has been utilized for the industrial production of pectinases.

How can we quantify the density of species within a community through environmental DNA concentrations?

Vinasse is a major by-product generated by the sugarcane biofuel industry. It is a source of microbes, nutrients and organic matter and often it is recycled as fertilizer.

Dr. Erik Vijgenboom (IBL) and Dr. Peter Punt (IBL/TNO) obtained a new NWO-grant for their project FILAZYME to develop filamentous micro-organisms for enzyme production to degrade biomass.

Development of GHG calculator for bio-electricity and heat.

Promotors: Prof.dr. E. Bouwman, Prof.dr. E. Drent

When oil is harvested from the seeds of the oil palm tree, the fruit residue can be used to make bio-ethanol. However, it can also be used as a fertilizer on palm tree plantations; which option is best for the environment? Edi Wiloso compared the two green options at the Institute of Environmental Sciences…

Promotor: P.J.J. Hooykaas, Co-Promotor: E.J. van der Zaal

Prof.dr. Annelou van Gijn has obtained a Marie Curie subsidy for research on wetland activity patterns in Mesolithic Northwest Europe. This funding has been used to employ the researcher dr. Aimée Little. The project will commence in November 2011.

Commercial enterprises who want to make use of the expertise and facilities are referred to LAB , the commercial unit responsible for specialized laboratory work.

Plants, algae and cyanobacteria have the amazing capacity to perform delicate photophysical and photochemical processes of light capture, excitation transfer, charge separation and catalysis in fluctuating living environments. As a consequence, photosynthetic proteins and membranes form dynamic architectures.…

How did people experience Islam on a day-to-day basis in the early centuries of Islam? That's where the papyri come in, says professor of Arabic Petra Sijpesteijn in the fourth video of the Leiden | Islam interview series.

Research at the Macromolecular Biochemistry group is comprised of the following research themes:

Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and -exploitation.

Decentralized plug and play systems for energy production are the future picture of our society. Artificial photosynthetic systems are used for this purpose.

Description of Effects of glufosinate-ammonium on off crop vegetation.

Our object is to identify and characterize transcription factors involved in lignocellulosic biomass degradation in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger.

Can we develop new enzymes and cell factories to upgrade current enzyme cocktails towards complete degradation of biomass?

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma, Co-promotor: R.N. Frese

Examining the sustainability aspects of biotechnology, especially those related to the production of ethanol from biomass.

PhD defence

The long-held desire - to link structure directly to function and to explain molecular mechanisms based on basic chemical or physical principles - is finally coming closer, satisfying not only our scientific curiosity but also offering new solutions to the many challenges in the field of health, energy…

Artificial photosynthesis aims to produce fuels from solar energy using chemical processes. In semi-artificial photosynthesis, a hybrid approach is taken using both chemical and biotechnology approaches. We aim to develop hybrid systems between light-harvesting nanoparticles and redox-enzymes (oxidoreductases)…

This thesis is concerned with the constitution of chiral responsive matrix assemblies that may undergo light-driven conformational changes and self-select vibrations to develop vibronic states for driving semi-classical coherent transfer with nearly 100% yield in a lossless NCAP process.

Biophysicist Anjali Pandit has been awarded a FOM 'Projectruimte' research grant for her proposal ‘Tuning into the photosynthetic membrane with atomistic precision’.

How does the photoregulation mechanism work in detail?

The Institute of Environmental Sciences has carried out and participates in several projects that deal with the analysis of energy systems.

A full overview of BPOC/SSNMR PhD theses.

Source: Biochem Pharmacol, Volume 95, Issue 4, pp. 290-300 (2015)

PhD defence

In this project, we will study the genetic and environmental drivers of woodiness and stem lignification at the level of plant‐to‐gene‐to‐molecule.

Promotor: A.P. IJzerman

Promotor: P. Stevenhagen, Co-promotores: B. de Smit, F. Andreatta

This thesis describes the design and development of subunit‐selective inhibitors of particular catalytically active subunits of human constitutive proteasomes and immunoproteasomes.

In this study, we evaluated the influence of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) spray drying conditions, in the absence of organic solvent, on the ability to produce dry protein/trehalose formulations at 1:10 and 1:4 (w/w) ratios.