Environmental Optimizing Biofuels Production T
he popularity of biofuels has grown as petrochemical organiza- tions seek to develop long-term production from sustainable resources. As a result, joint ventures and collaborations are be- coming more commonplace in this area. Systems that support this new demand require: 1) optimization of the raw materials; 2) the biological system (which converts the raw material to the chosen product) and 3) the process of running the production at commercially viable scale, be it continuous or batch.
There are many moving parts and an intrinsic link between various aspects of producing a biofuel or biofeedstock (referred to here as a bio-x), both from a value chain perspective across the process and the way the constituents of each part of the value chain impact it. For example, the production of the bio-x material is influenced by climate change, weather, water quality, regulatory and government policy and feedstock type.
This article will focus on a small section of the ecosystem, including the relationships between the biomass feedstock (algae, wood, corn, wheat, sugar), the biological system for conversion (yeast, enzymes, bacteria) and how this in turn is linked to the production and purification process (fermentation, distillation, filtration) for creating the bio-x. The scaleup process will also be explored.
Feedstock production In feedstock production, firms like Monsanto, Syntec Biofuel, Syngenta, Bayer Crop Science and BASF are working to develop optimized biofeed stocks. Precise optimization and strong collaboration with the other parts of the value chain are required to develop the necessary raw ma- terials and feedstocks for a given bio-x production system.
While producing more of something, or optimizing the content of a certain trait, chemical or protein, is a reasonably tractable problem considering modern agricultural practices and optimized crop strains, the process is complex. The optimized element—a certain sugar precur- sor, for example—is only useful if the downstream parts of the value chain in biofuel production are also optimized to extract and convert that feedstock and purify the bio-x, aviation fuel, for instance, to the correct levels.
Biological systems The next step is selecting a biological system to convert the feedstock
to the raw or unrefined product. Some would argue that the choice of bacterial yeast system is easy, and on a small laboratory scale perhaps
by Paul Denny-Gouldson
it is. On an industrial scale, however, the system must be optimized so that production is economically viable. If the cost of the system is too high, then industrial-scale production is a nonstarter.
Other factors then come into play. It is easy to optimize the biological system (genetically) to enhance traits and properties. These can even be designed from the ground up to impact only certain parts of the feedstock. Furthermore, the traits and properties can also be optimized to work at huge fermentation scales (thousands of liters) that otherwise would not work due to microbial and cellular behaviors.
Purification process Another important consideration is how to process the bio-x and con- sistently produce a pure material that can be used in mission-critical systems. This is not simple considering that these systems run continu- ously. When the product is not a single batch, process optimization and purification become considerably more complex. Factors that affect the purity can be very small and can be a derivative of something that occurs early in the process.
Critical properties of the bio-x must be monitored continuously, in real time, and if they begin to drift, alterations to the upstream process have to be made quickly. However, adjustments can only be made to those items that will affect the property that has just changed; a random change may have a detrimental effect on the product.
AMERICAN LABORATORY • 22 • MARCH 2015
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