A Coarse Techno-Economic Model of a Combined Fermentation-Catalysis Route to Sorbic Acid

The conversion of biomass into bulk chemicals provides the potential for multiple environmental and economic benefits. While current research in industrial biotechnology focuses primarily on biocatalysts, a significant opportunity exists when combining biological and chemical catalysis into one process train. This hybrid process approach will potentially produce a wide array of economically viable molecules. One test-case of this hybrid approach is the production of sorbic acid via biocatalytic conversion of glucose to 4-Hydroxy-6-methyl-2-pyrone (HMP), followed by catalytic conversion of HMP to sorbic acid. Current collaborative research has developed this process to the stage where gram-quantities of biologically-produced HMP have been delivered to catalysis to produce butyl sorbate (a hydrolysis step can then take this to sorbic acid). Although the final process details needed for a detailed technoeconomic analyses are several years away, it is desirable to understand a coarse structure of the economics of such a process. Such an understanding can provide insight into opportunities for process improvement, as well as into fundamental technoeconomic limitations of the approach. To this end, we have developed a spreadsheet-based model of this hybrid process and have estimated the sorbic acid production cost from the process, which are then compared to current wholesale prices. We also report results of a comprehensive sensitivity analysis to demonstrate potential process improvements

Development, validation, and use of a spreadsheet-based tool for early-stage technoeconomic evaluation of industrial biotechnologies

This thesis begins with a technoeconomic analysis (TEA) of bio-based sorbic acid (SA). The initial TEA focused only on SA, and did not attempt generalizations. However the experience of building the SA TEA inspired development of a more general tool designed for early-stage TEA\u27s of hybrid biological/chemical systems for producing bio-based chemicals, as proposed by the founders of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC). This early-stage TEA tool, named BioPET (Biorenewables Process Evaluation Tool), was designed for the purpose of conducting rapid early-stage economic analyses of these hybrid systems. BioPET was validated against a commercial economic analysis tool, SuperPro Designer®, and against published literature. BioPET was subsequently used to evaluate a recently developed pathway for bio-based styrene. BioPET fills a critical niche in the evolving bio-based chemicals industry. This is because there is a need for low-cost tools capable of early-stage estimations of the economics for novel bioprocess systems. Such a tool can provide valuable insight into nascent projects. This thesis is prepared in paper format, and is comprised of three manuscripts, as follow: The first paper was an evaluation of the economics of bio-based sorbic acid production. Sorbic acid has a growing market in food preservatives mainly due to health concerns about benzoic acid, currently-used food and cosmetic preservative. While bio-based sorbic acid has reached proof-of-concept stage, little has been done to understand the costs of a commercial-scale process and the economic feasibility of such a venture. A spreadsheet model was created for the purpose of conducting this evaluation and understanding how critical biokinetic parameters influence the final estimated selling price. Based on current values of these parameters, we appear far from producing a product that can be sold at commercial scale. However, by assuming improvements in key parameters that reflect experience with other fermentative systems, bio-based sorbic acid becomes cost competitive with current petroleum-based sorbic acid. Production costs were most sensitive to those parameters governing the overall yield of sorbic acid in this process. In the long-term projection, primary costs were almost equally shared amongst feedstock, separation, and catalysis. Improving yields for this process will be required to make this process economically feasible, but also vital will be improving all kinetic parameters in order to achieve cost competitiveness. The second paper explored the development of a robust but simple spreadsheet model (BioPET) to perform early-stage TEA of candidate processes for biorenewable chemical production. In the early-stage development of new technologies, a feasibility study or order-of-magnitude evaluation TEA is conducted to determine whether further development of that technology is warranted. With the number of new technologies and pathways being developed in the realm of industrial biotechnology, a tool that can provide a rapid estimation of a new technology has great value in delivering feedback to scientists and companies alike. Using basic inputs governing fermentation (e.g. productivity, titer, yield), separation (e.g. distribution coefficient, relative volatility, purity, yield), and catalysis (e.g. selectivity, conversion, type of catalyst), an estimate of a production price can be determined. This early-stage TEA tool was built in Microsoft Excel® and evaluated for accuracy and precision against SuperPro Designer® and the BREW project from the EU, using ethanol, succinic acid, and adipic acid as target chemicals. Processes were simulated as close to the BREW assumptions as possible. BioPET had accurate results against SuperPro Designer®, providing an R2 between the two tools of 0.9995. BioPET had minor deviances from BREW project projected selling prices of the evaluated chemicals, but the results were within the range of error for BioPET-derived estimates. The third paper describes the application of BioPET to the evaluation of bio-based styrene. Bio-based styrene is a drop-in replacement chemical that remains in the early stages of development. Given basic knowledge of the properties of chemicals used in the process and general knowledge of the biokinetic limitations of the host organism, the styrene process was evaluated in BioPET at conservative commercial-scale values to evaluate the competitiveness of such a method of production. The results suggest bio-based styrene could be competitive with current petroleum-based prices at predicted selling price of 1.82 USD kg-1. A Monte Carlo analysis provided insight into the uncertainty of the process and estimated an the standard deviation to be ±0.44 USD kg-1. The majority of the cost of bio-based styrene arises out of the feedstock due to the small maximum yield of fermentation and relatively simple process design. While current production values might not yet be commercially feasible, values of bio-based styrene have potential to surpass the current petroleum-based styrene production. Additional research into the metabolic pathways governing biostyrene production will enable a reduction in the uncertainty of the cost estimate. At present, the BioPET results on bio-based styrene, and rising prices of petroleum-based styrene, suggest that bio-based styrene may well be cost-competitive in the future

Recent Advances on The Enhanced Thermal Conductivity of Graphene Nanoplatelets Composites: A Short Review

Graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) have attracted significant attention in the field of thermal management materials due to their unique morphology and remarkable thermal conductive properties. In addition, their impressive thermal properties make them interesting nanofillers for producing multifunctional composite materials with a multitude range of applications. This work specifically reviews the recent advances of the application of GNPs as nanofillers for the development of enhanced thermal conductivity of various materials or composites. In this review, the insight on the improved thermal conductivity of the composites bestowed by the GNPs with comprehensive comparison are briefly discussed. This review might unlock windows of opportunities and paves the way towards the production of enhanced materials for thermal applications including electronics, aerospace devices, batteries, and structural reinforcement

The Company that Changed Itself

The role of industrial research in the development of the company that sponsors it is an essential question. This book takes up this question in an historical perspective with a case study of the Dutch chemical company DSM, a company that transformed itself three times over the course of its long history. The case study and its analysis offer a fresh perspective on the history of industrial research. Arjan van Rooij works as a researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands

Proceedings of the 10th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference - CHEMPOR 2008

This volume contains full papers presented at the 10th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference - CHEMPOR 2008, held in Braga, Portugal, between September 4th and 6th, 2008.FC

A Coarse Techno-Economic Model of a Combined Fermentation-Catalysis Route to Sorbic Acid

The conversion of biomass into bulk chemicals provides the potential for multiple environmental and economic benefits. While current research in industrial biotechnology focuses primarily on biocatalysts, a significant opportunity exists when combining biological and chemical catalysis into one process train. This hybrid process approach will potentially produce a wide array of economically viable molecules. One test-case of this hybrid approach is the production of sorbic acid via biocatalytic conversion of glucose to 4-Hydroxy-6-methyl-2-pyrone (HMP), followed by catalytic conversion of HMP to sorbic acid. Current collaborative research has developed this process to the stage where gram-quantities of biologically-produced HMP have been delivered to catalysis to produce butyl sorbate (a hydrolysis step can then take this to sorbic acid). Although the final process details needed for a detailed technoeconomic analyses are several years away, it is desirable to understand a coarse structure of the economics of such a process. Such an understanding can provide insight into opportunities for process improvement, as well as into fundamental technoeconomic limitations of the approach. To this end, we have developed a spreadsheet-based model of this hybrid process and have estimated the sorbic acid production cost from the process, which are then compared to current wholesale prices. We also report results of a comprehensive sensitivity analysis to demonstrate potential process improvements.This is an ASABE Meeting Presentation, Paper No. 12-1337523.</p

Crab and cockle shells as heterogeneous catalysts in the production of biodiesel

In the present study, the waste crab and cockle shells were utilized as source of calcium oxide to transesterify palm olein into methyl esters (biodiesel). Characterization results revealed that the main component of the shells are calcium carbonate which transformed into calcium oxide upon activated above 700 °C for 2 h. Parametric studies have been investigated and optimal conditions were found to be catalyst amount, 5 wt.% and methanol/oil mass ratio, 0.5:1. The waste catalysts perform equally well as laboratory CaO, thus creating another low-cost catalyst source for producing biodiesel. Reusability results confirmed that the prepared catalyst is able to be reemployed up to five times. Statistical analysis has been performed using a Central Composite Design to evaluate the contribution and performance of the parameters on biodiesel purity

Molecular phylogeny of horseshoe crab using mitochondrial Cox1 gene as a benchmark sequence

An effort to assess the utility of 650 bp Cytochrome C oxidase subunit I (DNA barcode) gene in delineating the members horseshoe crabs (Family: xiphosura) with closely related sister taxa was made. A total of 33 sequences were extracted from National Center for Biotechnological Information (NCBI) which include horseshoe crabs, beetles, common crabs and scorpion sequences. Constructed phylogram showed beetles are closely related with horseshoe crabs than common crabs. Scorpion spp were distantly related to xiphosurans. Phylogram and observed genetic distance (GD) date were also revealed that Limulus polyphemus was closely related with Tachypleus tridentatus than with T.gigas. Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda was distantly related with L.polyphemus. The observed mean Genetic Distance (GD) value was higher in 3rd codon position in all the selected group of organisms. Among the horseshoe crabs high GC content was observed in L.polyphemus (38.32%) and lowest was observed in T.tridentatus (32.35%). We conclude that COI sequencing (barcoding) could be used in identifying and delineating evolutionary relatedness with closely related specie

Scientific Information on Gulf of Mannar - A Bibliography

Gulf of Mannar in the southeast coast of India extends from Rameswaram Island in the north to Kanyakumari in the south. It has a chain of 21 islands stretching from Mandapam to Tuticorin to a distance of 140 km along the coast. Each one of the islands is located anywhere between 2 and 10 km from the mainland. The Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve was set up on 18th February 1989 jointly by the Government of India and the state of Tamilnadu. The government of Tamilnadu in G.O. M.S. No 962 dated 10th September 1986 notified under section 35(1) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972 the intention to declare the 21 islands as Marine National Park for the purpose of protecting marine wildlife and its environment including depths of 3.5 fathoms on the bay side to 5 fathoms on the seaward side. The compilation of all available scientific literature in the form of an annotated bibliography of the Gulf of Mannar biosphere reserve has brought to light the existence of nearly 3,000 publications up to date. This covers the literature published from as early as 1864 to the current year. A large number of publications in the first half of the 20th century have brought out information on the variety of fauna and flora found in the Gulf of Mannar, their biology and ecology. A lot of emphasis on the fish and fisheries research has been given only in the second half of the 20th century. Emphasis is being given on biochemical aspects of flora and fauna in the later part of the 20th century and at present

The source of the building stones from the Sagunto Castle archaeological area and its surroundings

A multidisciplinary study was carried out on the building stones of the masonries belonging to the Castle of Sagunto (Valencia, Spain), an important historical and archeological complex, characterized by several construction phases from the Roman Period to the Modern Ages. For the first time, the stones of the Sagunto Castle have been analysed to determine their chemical, mineralogical and petrographic features, the main physical and mechanical properties, and to understand their decay, use and recycling dynamics in the different building during the entire occupational period. Geochemical and mineralogical analyses employing X-ray fluorescence (XRF), inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were carried out together with optical and electronic microscope analysis to observe the stone macro- and micro-structures. The collected data were processed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to highlight differences among the studied structures. The results show that the stones employed to build Sagunto`s structures during the different historical periods are related to a specific quarried area located nearby Sagunto Castle hill and differences between the studied samples are mostly related to the conservation state of the buildings. Therefore, geochemical analyses confirm the origin of the raw materials, while petrographic and physical analyses have been useful to evaluate the conservation state of the studied Sagunto Castle structures