• EnXylaScope
    Research project at Celignis





EnXylaScope

"Mining Microbes and Developing Advanced Production Platforms for Novel Enzymes To Rapidly Unleash Xylans Potential In a Scope Of Products For the Consumer Market"


ProgrammeHorizon Europe, FNR-16-2020
CategoryResearch and Innovation Action (RIA)
StatusActive
Period2021 - 2025
Partners13
Budget€6.04m
LinksCordis, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook
Enxylascope is a 13 partner project, thought and written by Celignis, with multiple focus areas to achieve consumer products free of liquid plastics derived from fossil fuel resources. The project has several novel elements, with a strong commercial focus. The novelty starts with the discovery of novel xylan side chain acting enzymes and extends to their application to develop novel xylan based products.

The enzymes under discovery are arabinofuranosidases, glucuronidases, feruloyl esterases and acetyl xylan esterases. Due to the complexity of these enzymes and their mode of actions (and as they are spread across different families), discovery is targeted by genomic, proteomic and conventional screening approaches.




Enxylascope partners

Celignis is involved in isolation of natural isolates that have the ability to produce multiple sidechain-acting enzymes of interest by adaptive culture enrichment process, while partner SINTEF is using a genetic approach and Technological Delft University (TUD) is using a proteomics approach to discover novel enzymes.

As part of Enxylascope, Celignis is extracting water-soluble xylan to convert it to water insoluble forms with high water holding capacity using the enzymes developed in the project, with an aim to use the modified xylan as alternative for liquid plastics that are used as rheology modifiers in personal care and cosmetics products.

In addition to this, the project also focuses on producing functional feed and foods from underutilised agricultural residues, once again using the enzymes discovered in the project.

Enxylascope consumer product areas

Enxylascope activities

The project also undertakes the full-length TEA (Celignis) and LCA (IFEU) studies of this multi-product biorefinery and also regulatory (AITIIP) and consumer acceptance study (RISE) of the novel products produced in the project.

The strong project consortium, with enzyme producers (MetGen) and product uptake partners SEPPIC, Kerry, and Fermex, to test the products developed as part of the project, will allow the project to move from discovery to market at accelerated speed.

Celignis is aiming to take this project beyond Enxylascope and transform it to a biorefinery in a collaborative fashion with like-minded industries and research institutes.

Other Celignis Research Projects Funded by the Horizon Programme

Current Projects


PERFECOAT, a RIA project funded by the BBI JU, targets the development of novel sustainable coatings that will ultimately be available to the public. Celignis is responsible for the extraction and modification of polymers (xylan and chitosan) that will be used as binders in these coatings. Further info...BIONEER, is an Innovation Action project funded by the CBE-JU, under topic HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-IA-06 (Selective, Sustainable Production Routes Towards Bio-Based Alternatives To Fossil-Based Chemical Building Blocks). This project will start in May 2024 with Celignis, an SME partner and full industry BIC member, playing a leading role in the scaled-up (1 m3) production of platform chemicals. Further info...PROMOFER, is an Innovation Action project funded by the CBE-JU, under topic HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-IA-03 (Improve Fermentation Processes (Including Downstream Purification) To Final Bio-Based Products). This project will start in June 2024 with Celignis, an SME partner and full industry BIC member, playing a pivotal role in the project. Our core activities include undertaking the pre-treatment and hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass at scaled-up (TRL7, 1 m3) volumes. The resulting sugars are then provided to other partners for downstream fermentations. Further info...MANUREFINERY, is an Innovation Action project funded by the CBE-JU, under topic HORIZON-JU-CBE-2023-IA-01 (Small Scale Biorefining In Rural Areas). This project will start in September 2024 with Celignis, an SME partner and full industry BIC member, involved in the analysis of feedstocks and products of the process. We are also contributing towards the technoeconomic analysis (TEA) of the technologies. Further info...This demo project involves innovative superheated steam processing of unwanted bush and invasive biomass into high-value, clean-burning, low-cost solid biofuel. Celignis will analyse feedstocks, and process outputs, and use our QTOF-LC/MS system to profile the steam condensate for high value chemicals. We will then develop a method to recover target constituents. Further info...BIO4AFRICA will empower smallholder farmers by creating value from locally available biomass. Celignis is analysing a wide range of biomass feedstocks, from a number of African countries, and providing recommendations regarding the most suitable ones, under the best conditions, for the given processing technology. We also analyse the outputs of the various processes. Further info...

Completed Projects


DIBANET was an FP7 research project, written and coordinated by Celignis founder Dan Hayes, that concerned the production of second generation biofuels from biomass feedstocks in Europe and Latin America. The advances in the state of the art of biomass analysis made in DIBANET led to the formation of Celignis. Further info...The BIOrescue project was focused on developing technologies to convert spent mushroom compost, a problematic waste of the mushroom industry, to high value products. Within the project Celignis undertook a compositional profiling study of the feedstocks and developed rapid analysis models for these and process outputs. Further info...The UNRAVEL project (UNique Refinery Approach to Valorise European Lignocellulosics) is focused on the optimsiation of a biomass pre-treatment technology. Celignis plays a key role by analysing and evaluating the extractives present in a wide variety of feedstocks and determining how they influence pre-treatment. Further info...The focus of ENABLING was on supporting the spreading of best practices and innovation in the provision of biomass for the Bio-Based Industry (BBI). Celignis played a key role in the project with regards to stressing the importance of biomass composition in terms of evaluating feedstock and technology suitability. Further info...Celignis was the sole partner in SAPHIRE. The project, funded by the European Union's INNOSUP programme, concerned the production of high-value hydrogels from lignocellulosic residues. These are expected to have applications in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sectors. Further info...VAMOS concerns the construction and operation of a demonstration-scale biorefinery producing lactic acid from the paper fraction of municipal waste. In the project Celignis will develop custom NIR models for the rapid at-line on-site analysis of the feedstock and process outputs. Further info...This was a Marie-Curie Individual Fellowship (MCSA-IF) involving Celignis's Lalitha in which algae were used to recover nutrients from anaerobic digestion (AD) process streams. Further info...

Other Celignis Research Projects

Current Projects


Celignis is the sole partner in STEAME, a project funded by the Irish Research Council and focused on the development of technologies to make anaerobic digestion more financially viable in Ireland. Further info...

Celignis News Articles on EnXylaScope

June 29th 2022

Short Video by Lalitha on EnXylaScope


This 5 minute presentation was given at the recent IBioIC conference

Celignis recently exhibited at IBioiC's annual conference, held in Glasgow on June 6-7.

During that event Lalitha, Celignis's CIO, gave a short 5 minute presentation on the EnXylaScope collaborative EU research project that Celignis is involved in.

You can view the presentation below or here on YouTube.


April 27th 2022

Intro Video to EnXylaScope Launched


It explains the background to the project and its targets for xylan extraction and modification

An introductory video to the EnXylaScope project (funded by Horizon Europe and technically led by Celignis) has been released. It has been prepared by our fellow consortium partner Loba and details the rationale for the project and the technical advances that the project will make, leading to an efficient and commercially-viable process for the extraction of xylan and its modification so that it can be incorporated into a range of consumer products.

Click here to learn more about the project and Celignis's central contributions to it and here to view the video on YouTube.

February 15th 2022

EnXylaScope's First Newsletter is Released


It details the exciting progress already made in the project

The newsletter covers the project's activities in the search for xylan debranching enzymes (a WP with extensive involvement from Celignis) and on the extraction and modification of xylans for consumer products (a WP led by Celignis). Click here to view the newsletter.

December 10th 2021

Lalitha Presenting the EnXylaScope Project at CLIB Forum Event


There will also be presentations from the other projects funded in EnXylaScope's call

EnXylaScope is one of four research projects that were funded in the Horizon 2020 call FNR-16-2020 (Enzymes for more environment-friendly consumer products). Today a remote networking event is being held (CLIB HiPerln 2.0 Forum - Catalysing Alliances for Greener Products) at which representatives from each of the projects will present and discuss opportunities for collaboration. Celignis's Lalitha will be representing the EnXylaScope project and is looking forward to discussing the exciting opportunities for enzyme development and xylan valorisation offered by the project. Click here to read more about the event and to register.

May 18th 2021

Kick-Off Meeting for the EnXylaScope Project


Celignis is the Technical Coordinator of this Horizon Europe project

Today we were happy to take part in the kick-off meeting for our EnXylaScope project. There were fruitful discussions between the project's partners on the work to be undertaken in the various work packages and on how the scientific and technical progress will be guided by the clear commercial opportunities presented by xylan as a polymer and the range of markets for which it can be an important component in consumer products. The discovery and application of novel enzymes to facilitate this is a key component of the proejct.

Click here to read more about the project and the important contributions that Celignis is making towards it.

April 29th 2021

Success for Celignis at the Irish Lab Awards 2021


We won in the “Innovation of the Year” and the “Laboratory Staff Member of the Year” categories

We are happy to announce that Celignis received two awards in the 2021 Irish Lab Awards. These awards are detailed below:

Innovation of the Year Award - for our technological developments for polysaccharide extraction and modification and our advances in the provision of Bioprocess Development Services for clients.

Laboratory Staff Member of the Year Award - For Laitha, our Chief Innovation Officer, recognising the massive constributions she has made to the company in the last year in terms of innovations, enhanced services to our clients, and business development.

Click here to see the list of finalists and awardees in each category.





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