Research.

Learn about our current research projects

Decoding carbonates: towards predictive control of carbon
mineralisation through high-throughput mineralogy and machine
learning

Starting in July 2026, this NERC "Pushing the Frontiers of Environmental Research" project will aim at better understanding and controlling the environmental and molecular parameters controlling the mineralisation of carbon into carbonate minerals, a key carbon removal strategy. For this, we will deploy newly developed high-throughput methodologies that allow us to rapidly perform and characterise thousands of carbonate mineralisation experiments, spanning a wide multi-dimensional space of physicochemical variables and include hundreds of organic additives. The resulting datasets will be used to train and test ML models capable of predicting mineralogical outcomes from any given set of variables and additives, and identifying key parameters critically controlling carbonate mineralisation under different geochemical environments.

High-throughput optimisation of carbon mineralization by engineered cyanobacteria: towards carbon negative mineral materials

There is a critical need to develop effective strategies for Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) to meet net-zero targets. A promising pathway is carbon mineralisation, which turns CO2 into stable carbonate minerals, acting as a long-term carbon store. This process can be coupled with the manufacturing of valuable carbonate mineral particles for various industries in applications such as construction (cements), paints, coatings, plastics and cosmetics, enhancing the economic profitability of CCUS.
This project establishes a collaboration between the University of Oxford and CyanoCapture, a fast-growing startup implementing engineering biology for carbon-negative/neutral biomanufacturing of recombinant proteins and biomolecules. CyanoCapture has developed proprietary strains of fast-growing cyanobacteria, engineered for enhanced CO2 uptake. The project’s primary goal will be to assess the potential of these unique strains to bioprecipitate calcium carbonates for sustainable mineral manufacturing, a potential new commercial avenue for the company. Researchers at the University of Oxford will employ a newly designed high-throughput analytical platform to rapidly screen different cyanobacterial strains under a wide range of culture conditions, quantifying carbon mineralisation efficiency and carbonate particle properties.

Learn more about the project here

A platform for the discovery and engineering of biomineralization controls

Starting April 2024, the ERC/UKRI-funded 5-year project BioFacts combines high-throughput Raman spectromicroscopy and molecular biology approaches to uncover new biological mechanisms controlling microbial biomineralization.

​Please get in touch if you are interested in joining the project as a postdoctoral researcher or DPhil student.