Mateus de Paiva

Mateus has an MSc in Chemical Engineering and the focus of his research was on simulation of biomass gasification processes. While at the University he had an opportunity to gain experience on biofilm production, also kinetics and development of a food dryer. He is passionate about the idea of generating sustainable solutions from waste materials. He joined Celignis as a bioprocess intern and fell in love with the company’s ethos and what Celignis was developing.

Mateus is currently working as a key member of Celignis in bioprocess development, routine analysis and anaerobic digestion. He is involved in day-to-day management of Celignis bioprocess projects and some of the routine analyses for meeting the required deliverables in the given timeline.

Mateus has experience in bioprocess development of biopolymers. He worked on the extraction, purification and optimization of polymers derived from biomasses at Celignis. He was involved in the formulation of biofilms, foams and hydrogels by modification and functionalization of the polymers extracted. He has also worked with alginates, celluloses and xylans in different projects such as EnXylaScope and PERFECOAT.

Biomass pretreatment is an important step for maximizing the recovery of target component as well as increasing the digestibility with enzymes. Mateus has conducted many studies on pretreatment of biomass in the efforts to identify the best pretreatment conditions suitable for the recovery of certain desired end products. He analyzes the feedstock compositions to generate the lignocellulose and extractives data and compare with the pretreated data to be able to evaluate the efficiency of pretreatment and choose which one should be the best for the biomass tested.

He also has experience in enzymatic hydrolysis where we are able to determine the enzymatic digestibility of a specific biomass sample as well as the resulting sugar concentration profiles as the hydrolysis progresses. The enzymatic hydrolysis can be further optimized in conjunction with the pretreatment with the aim of identifying which combination works best to increase the polysaccharide accessibility, conversion efficiency and conversion rate.

Mateus has good knowledge of the different analysis methods carried out at Celignis such as thermal analysis, elemental composition, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), ash melting behaviour, and volatile matter. He developed capabilities for troubleshooting the equipment and with these analyses he is able to have understand the potential of the feedstock, having the understanding of the data provided by Celignis.

Mateus has worked in the Anaerobic Digestion department by carrying out thermal analysis, COD, BOD and Ammonia determinations of the original sample as well as the digestate and inoculum. With his adept understanding of the generated data, he is able to correlate the theoretical and the experimental Biomethane Potentials of the biomass analysed.

MSc: In Chemical Engineering from Polytechnic Institute of Braganca, Portugal (2021), Thesis title: Modeling and simulation of biomass gasification processes.

BSc: In Chemical Engineering from Federal University of Technology Parana, Brazil (2019).