Dr. Antonino Biundo

Antonino Biundo is the winner of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Action Individual Fellowship REWIND (Enzymatic recycling of waste cooking oils for the plastic industry). He has got his PhD in Biotechnology at the BOKU University in Vienna working on the enzymatic degradation of plastics. He has been working on the valorisation of waste products first during his first postdoc at the KTH in Stockholm with forestry waste products and then at the University of Bari where he currently works. He is also the CEO of the Italian start-up REWOW srl that deals with the production of ingredients for the cosmetic sector from organic waste.

Research summary

Antonino Biundo’s research deals with the biocatalytic transformation of waste products. Especially, Antonino is working on waste cooking oils which can be used to produce aliphatic polyesters to replace fossil-based products and other products from virgin biomass. His research deals with the expression of recombinant enzymes together with the natural activity of microorganisms to produce industrially valuable products, such as single molecules and polymers.

Keywords

Biocatalysis, Enzyme Engineering, Waste Valorisation, Bioeconomy