| FEATURES & INNOVATIONS |


EFB, which is a non-food resource that is cheap and readily available as a waste derived from the world’s largest palm oil mills here in southeast Asia.” The critical part of the lactic acid to acrylic


acid conversion process is finding an efficient way to strip the water from lactic acid. Choi and his team have been studying the use of multi-element inorganic materials as a catalyst for this reaction, but the key challenge has been the low yield of acrylic acid from this process due to unwanted side reactions. Recent breakthroughs, however, have shown significant promise. “Through structural engineering and


advanced surface modification of the catalyst material, we have been able to increase the yield of acrylic acid to more than 80 per cent, which is by far the best performance ever reported for this reaction,” says Choi. To support the B2C programme, the


ICES has brought all of these technologies together to establish an integrated biorefinery process specifically for the


production of acrylic acid from EFB. The pro- cess encompasses the entire value chain with research teams working on each operational unit, from biomass pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation, to separation, purification and catalytic conversion of lactic acid to acrylic acid. “At the ICES, we have world-class facilities,


excellent scientists from all over the world and strong financial support from the Singaporean government,” says Wu. “We have all the facili- ties needed for our research — Parr reactors for pretreatment of biomass to extract fermentable sugars, fermenters to convert sugars to various chemicals by microbial fermentation, and a range of supporting facilities such as automated liquid handling systems, robotic colony pickers, and a plasma generator for isolating microbes and genetically modifying them to improve their performance for chemical production.”


Exploring chemical diversity At the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, scientists involved in the


Bench-scale fermenters for biomass conversion experi- ments at ICES.


biomass-to-chemical research coordinate with their colleagues at ICES through the Bio-Re- newable Chemicals from Biomass programme led by Yugen Zhang. “Here, we are working on the conversion of


Converting renewable resources to value-added


chemicals is sustainable in a way that fossil fuels will never be.


biomass resources to a wider range of industrial chemicals,” says Zhang. “Chemicals such as adipic acid, maleic anhydride, acrylic acid, butadiene and furandicarboxylic acid, are very important for the polymer industry. Our scientists are doing cutting-edge research that capitalizes on our expertise in many different fields, including catalysis, organic chemistry and materials.” Under the IBN programme, researchers


have developed highly efficient processes for a number of industrially important reactions, including the conversion of mucic acid to adipic acid — a fundamental step in the production of nylon — and of sugars to furandicarboxylic acid, which is an important emerging bioprocess with many potential applications in polymer production and medicine. “In our research, we focus on increasing


the selectivity of the reactions, which increases yield and lowers the cost of the overall process, which is the major challenge for the use of biomass in chemical production,” says Zhang. Despite the obstacles, the potential of


A 50 liter fermenter for biomass conversion at the ICES laboratory. 14 A*STAR RESEARCH


industrial biomass-to-chemical production make it very much worth the effort and invest- ment. “This research field is very exciting,” says Wu. “Converting renewable resources to value-added chemicals is sustainable in a way that fossil fuels will never be. Even when the price of petroleum is low, biomass conversion is still commercially promising, particularly for specialty chemicals.”


ISSUE 6 | JANUARY – MARCH 2017


© 2017 A*STAR Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences


© 2017 A*STAR Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences


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