Our Bioseparation Lab focuses its research, mainly, on purifying and obtaining molecules of biotechnological and industrial interest from the area’s agricultural residues. The main objective is to contribute in the reduction of environmental pollution by recycling the waste produced in the region.

Our main interest is to develop simple, economic, non-polluting extractive and bioseparative methods that can later be scaled up.

Currently there are three research lines:

1- Recovery of molecules of biotechnological importance from local agricultural residues: this line focuses on the processing of soybean hulls, an unused residue from provincial agriculture, to extract valuable molecules from it.

2- New ecological polymer matrices with low biomass interaction and high adsorption capacity for molecules of industrial interest: The adsorption of enzymes on insoluble matrices formed by natural or synthetic polymers currently provides a solution to the problem of bioseparation. With this in mind, we are studying the development of new low-cost and non-polluting natural polymeric beds that can be used for protein adsorption.

3- Removal of textile dyes on unused agricultural waste in the area by adsorption: This research line focuses on the bioremediation of industrial textile effluents through the use of waste from agricultural business (natural and renewable waste), which according to the utility and necessity can be chemically modified to improve their physical-chemical properties, and be able to use them as adsorbent matrix. Likewise, its direct application is also aimed to study the development of a tertiary treatment for textile industrial effluents, generated during their textile dyeing process, through the use of these matrices in adsorption columns (fixed-bed column). Therefore, our research group intends to simultaneously solve two problems on an industrial scale: to use, in a single stage, two industrial residues (effluents from polluted waters and agricultural residues) with a considerable high environmental impact.