Selective Hydrogel Membranes for Modular SynBio Processing Units

Industrial microbiology has great potential in modernizing chemical manufacturing, particularly in the synthesis of high value products (HVPs) and precursors. To further mitigate issues within manufacturing regarding high energy consumption, environmental pollution, and slow response times to demand fluctuations, we can look to decentralized production and modular processing units. Hydrogels are 3D networks of crosslinked hydrophilic polymers that can retain large amounts of water without dissolution. Their rheological properties, cytocompatibility, and structural capabilities allow them a wide range of applications, including cell encapsulation, drug delivery, and membrane technologies. By encapsulating engineered microbes in hydrogel membranes, we can create engineered living materials (ELMs) capable of on-demand activation, continuous bioproduction using simple raw materials like glucose, and membrane-based separations of the biomanufactured HVPs. We first investigate the application of poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate/glycerol (PEGDA-Gly) hydrogels as semi-permeable membranes, including morphological characterization with high-throughput screening of Small Angle X-RAY Scattering (SAXS) and automated permeability testing. We further investigate the performance of these PEGDA-Gly membranes as ELMs by encapsulating betaxanthin-producing <i>S. cerevisiae </i>and assessing cell viability and productivity.