Welsh researcher awarded £3m funding in major climate change initiative

A Welsh researcher has secured a share of a £150 million government investment to lead a major new project aimed at reducing the chemical industry’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Dr Jaime Massanet-Nicolau, Associate Professor of Bio-Based Chemical Production at the University of South Wales’ Sustainable Environment Research Centre (SERC), has been awarded £3 million in funding and named a Green Future Fellow as part of a nationwide programme tackling climate change.

Dr Massanet-Nicolau will lead the BIO-VISTA project, alongside Professor Alun Guy and Dr Rhys Jones, which will develop technology to turn waste materials into valuable low-carbon chemicals.

She said: “BIO-VISTA’s vision is simple: turn this waste carbon into high-value, sustainable chemicals that industry already needs, and create a circular economy where waste becomes a resource instead of a problem.”

BIO-VISTA will develop a biotechnology that could convert waste materials, including food waste, sewage sludge and industrial-off gases, into volatile fatty avoids (VFAs), which have become widely used in plastics and textiles.

The project will start next year, bringing together key innovations to reduce energy and increase efficiency, improve VFA yield, and define the economic and environmental benefits of this low-temperature biorefining technology.

Th team is working with partners including Welsh Water, Severn Trent and dairy co-operative First Milk to test real-world waste streams and explore future industrial applications.

Other projects awarded Green Future funding include those focused on more efficient and recyclable solar panels; extracting critical metals for batteries, magnets, solar panels and fuel cells by filtering salty water; long-term renewable energy storage; and more energy-efficient data storage system.

Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chair of the Green Future Fellowship Steering Group, said: “The climate crisis is the challenge of our generation. We need era-defining solutions that address the enormity of the challenge. Many of these solutions exist, but need the dual investment of money and time to make them a success.

“The Green Future Fellowships support innovators who are pushing engineering boundaries and developing bold solutions to climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience. The inaugural Green Future Fellows are pioneering truly advanced technologies to protect the world we live in.”