Dan Noguera
Job Description
Professor Noguera’s research group works on environmental biotechnology with a focus on bioenergy and sustainability. The work with biological wastewater treatment is primarily related to minimizing energy needs in activated sludge processes by harnessing the ability of microorganisms to perform nitrogen and phosphorus removal under low dissolved oxygen conditions. The Noguera lab also works in biofuel and biochemical production by modifying aerobic and anaerobic aromatic degradation pathways.
- MathFISH, for in silico design of fluorescent in situ hybridization probes
- DECIPHER, for chimera detection and probe/primer design
My students and I work on the area of Environmental Biotechnology within Environmental Engineering. The current major areas of research are (i) bioenergy, (ii) biological nutrient removal during wastewater treatment, and (iii) anaerobic digestion.
Within a multidisciplinary setting at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, my bioenergy research is related to the engineering of microorganisms to produce valuable chemicals from renewable resources such as lignin and several other agroindustrial residues.
Our research on biological nutrient removal seeks to develop new treatment processes with reduced energy requirements. We are primarily focused on the development of efficient enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) and simultaneous nitrification/denitrification under low dissolved oxygen conditions.
Research on anaerobic digestion focuses on modifying the microbial communities to improve the quality of biogas generated during methanogenesis, and on using anaerobic fermentation to gain value out of organic residues.
