Prince of Songkla University (PSU) was established in 1967 as the first university in southern Thailand. The original aims of the university were to raise the general education standards and support regional industry and development. Today, PSU is a leading public university, committed to academic excellence, reputable research and innovation. It is one of the nine national research universities and among the top 10 comprehensive universities in Thailand by Quacquarelli Symonds’ ranking.

Biosystem research is among the most active fields at PSU. With a rich bio-resource atmosphere in the equatorial region, southern Thailand hosts various food producing and processing industries from various economic crops and meat products from farm animals and seafood. Such industries produce a vast volume of lignocellulosic wastes and wastewaters. Our group consisting of experienced and early stage researchers of various fields has worked together to deal with such wastes aiming to not only treat but also convert them into energy and various value-added products. Our team conduct research covering different pre-treatment technologies of wastes and wastewaters in order to compromise the structure of solid or to detoxify the harmful compounds from the materials to be converted. Bioprocess systems are tested for the biochemical conversion of the materials to biofuels, methane, hydrogen, and organic acids, as well as biological and chemical biogas desulfurization. Of some specific processes, several promising microorganisms are screened and used to convert industrial wastes into valuable biofuels and bioproducts such as biofertilizers and plant growth promotors. Recently, different techniques to recover carbon dioxide from atmosphere have been investigated. The effluent and digestate from the conversion processes are also used as raw materials to produce essential compounds and microbial cells. This will enable closure of the loop for material cycle. Our associate lab also works on the molecular biology and bioinformatics, investigating the interactions between the bioprocess and living organisms within the defined systems. The research interests lie in using of beneficial bacteria -particularly anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (APB) and sulphur oxidizing bacteria (SOB)- to apply in agriculture and environment. Molecular techniques such as PCR-DGGE and qPCR are used to monitor the microbial changes in response to natural and man-made constraints imposed to the studied systems. Genomics analysis, bioinformatics and omics analysis including genomics, transcriptomics and metagenomics are also ongoing research at our Biosystem Research Group at PSU.