Dr Apostolis Koutinas graduated in 1997 from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Patras (Greece). He was awarded the degree of PhD in 2002 in the research field of Biochemical Engineering at the Department of Chemical Engineering at UMIST (Manchester, UK). From 2002 until 2008, he worked as Research Associate at the Satake Centre for Grain Process Engineering (School of Chemical Engineering and Analytical Science, University of Manchester, UK; formerly UMIST). Since 2009, he has been working as member of staff at the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.
Since 2011, Dr Koutinas has participated in more than 28 research projects funded by national and international funding agencies (e.g. German – Greek and China – Greek Bilateral R&D Cooperation programmes, Prima, FP7, H2020, BBI JU, Life). One of his achievements involves industrial funding from the petroleum company Petrobras (Brazil) in collaboration with the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). In 2013, Dr Koutinas was awarded a Special Visiting Researcher Fellowship under the Brazilian Scientific Mobility Program Ciências sem Fronteiras. Dr Koutinas has served as working group leader in two COST actions focusing on food supply chain waste valorisation (EUBis) and process development for lignin valorisation (LignoCOST).
He has published more than 135 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, 17 book chapters and 1 edited book (h-index 38, Scopus). He has participated in more than 170 international scientific conferences, workshops, summer schools and educational seminars with 28 invited presentations in international events in several countries including India, Brazil, China, Colombia, UK, Spain, Argentina and Italy among others. He has been invited to teach 8 fast-track MSc courses in Spain, Argentina and Brazil. Dr Koutinas has supervised 7 graduated PhD students and 29 graduated MSc students.
He currently serves as Editor of the Biochemical Engineering Journal (Elsevier).
Research Interests
His research focuses on biorefinery development using renewable resources (e.g. food industry side streams) to separate value-added components (e.g. proteins, antioxidant-rich fractions) followed by microbial bioconversion of remaining fractions to produce bio-based chemicals and polymers within a circular economy context (e.g. succinic acid, polyhydroxyalkanoates, microbial oil, bacterial cellulose, bio-based pigments, 2,3-butanediol, bacterial cellulose). The novel biorefinery concepts are evaluated via process design, techno-economic evaluation and life cycle assessment in order to ensure the development of sustainable processes facilitating the transition to the bio-economy era following circular economy principles.
Selected Publications
Tsouko E, Maina S, Ladakis D, Kookos IK, Koutinas A. 2020. Integrated biorefinery development for the extraction of value-added components and bacterial cellulose production from orange peel waste streams. Renewable Energy 160, 944-954, 10.1016/j.renene.2020.05.108
Ioannidou SM, Pateraki C, Ladakis D, Papapostolou H, Tsakona M, Vlysidis A, Kookos, IK, Koutinas A. 2020. Sustainable production of bio-based chemicals and polymers via integrated biomass refining and bioprocessing in a circular bioeconomy context. Bioresource Technology, 307, 123093, 10.1016/j.biortech.2020.123093
Stylianou E, Pateraki C, Ladakis D, Cruz-Fernandez M, Latorre-Sanchez M, Coll C, Koutinas A. 2020. Evaluation of organic fractions of municipal solid waste as renewable feedstock for succinic acid production, Biotechnology for Biofuels 13(1), 72, 10.1186/s13068-020-01708-w
Lokesh K, Matharu AS, Kookos IK, Ladakis D, Koutinas A, Morone P, Clark J. 2020. Hybridised sustainability metrics for use in life cycle assessment of bio-based products: Resource efficiency and circularity, Green Chemistry 22, 803-813, 10.1039/C9GC02992C
Alexandri M, Schneider R, Papapostolou H, Ladakis D, Koutinas A, Venus J. 2019, Restructuring the conventional sugar beet industry into a novel biorefinery: Fractionation and bioconversion of sugar beet pulp into succinic acid and value-added coproducts, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering 7, 6569-6579, 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b04874
Kookos IK, Koutinas A, Vlysidis A. 2019. Life cycle assessment of bioprocessing schemes for poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) production using soybean oil and sucrose as carbon sources, Resources, Conservation and Recycling 141, 317-328, 10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.10.025
Alexandri M, Vlysidis A, Papapostolou H, Tverezovskaya O, Tverezovskiy V, Kookos IK, Koutinas A. 2019. Downstream separation and purification of succinic acid from fermentation broths using spent sulphite liquor as feedstock. Separation and Purification Technology 209, 666-675, 10.1016/j.seppur.2018.08.061
Pateraki C, Andersen SJ, Ladakis D, Koutinas A, Rabaey K. 2019. Direct electrochemical extraction increases microbial succinic acid production from spent sulphite liquor, Green Chemistry 21, 2401-2411, 10.1039/C9GC00361D
Papadaki A, Fernandes KV, Chatzifragkou A, Aguieiras ECG, da Silva JAC, Fernandez-Lafuente R, Papanikolaou S, Koutinas A, Freire DMG. 2018. Bioprocess development for biolubricant production using microbial oil derived via fermentation from confectionery industry wastes. Bioresource Technology 267, 311-318, 10.1016/j.biortech.2018.07.016
Koutinas AA, Vlysidis A, Pleissner D, Kopsahelis N, Garcia IL, Kookos IK, Papanikolaou S, Kwan TH, Lin CSK. 2014. Valorization of industrial waste and by-product streams via fermentation for the production of chemicals and biopolymers. Chemical Society Reviews 43:2587-2627
Contact details
Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition
Laboratory of Food Process Engineering
Agricultural University of Athens
Iera Odos 75, Athens 118 55
Tel. / Fax: 210-5294729
e -mail: akoutinas@aua.gr
Website: http://www.aua.gr/bioprocesses/
