Galway scientist’s research wins grant of €500,000

A Galway scientist is leading a team researching how to add metal to bacteria in order to create industrial scale bioenergy from waste.

The researchers will examine whether poor land in the west of Ireland could be used to grow crops for anaerobic digesters which – when combined with bacteria and metal – would feed into the electricity and gas network.

Dr Gavin Collins, senior lecturer in the School of Natural Sciences in NUI Galway, has received half a million euro in funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) to further investigate how to use microbiology to improve waste treatment, food production and agriculture.

The grant over four years allows him to increase his team of ten to 14 to carry out experiments in the field which many believe could help solve the energy crisis as world oil supplies peter out and the need to source an alternative fuel supply becomes more urgent.

Dr Collins, a native of Ballymoe in North Galway, who now lives in Claregalway, worked as a researcher in Germany, the world leaders of biotechnology.

But he believes Ireland could well follow suit.

“Ireland is quite well suited because we have the space for growing food stocks and grasses. It’s really suitable for poor land in the west of Ireland. It could be an alternative use for the land and prove a supplementary income stream for a farmer to raise a family.”

He predicts that a farmer could use the crops to power their lights before selling whatever they do not need to the gas or electricity networks.

But a lot more work is needed into how to commercialise the process of converting waste – or specially grown crops – into biofuel.

“The smallest anaerobic digester is your gut, so you’re looking at a natural process and copying it in industry and scaling it up,” explained Dr Collins.

“Bacteria do need some metals to multiply so we’re interested in why bacteria benefit from being dosed by metals. Very little is known about how bacteria take up metals.”

Dr Collins attended school in Glenamaddy before pursuing science at NUIG, where he was awarded a PhD. He worked at universities in Glasgow and Berkley, California before returning to his old alma mater.

Dr Collins was one of 22 researchers awarded part of a €13.7 million investment by the SFI.