Assessment of Biocatalytic Production Parameters to Determine Economic and Environmental Viability

The minimum selling price (MSP), specific energy consumption, and greenhouse (GHG) emissions resulting from biobased production of adipic acid, succinic acid, 1,3-propanediol, 3-hydroxy propionic acid, and isobutanol were estimated for various combinations of titer, yield, and volumetric productivity. The MSP, energy consumption, and GHG emissions of anaerobic biobased commodity chemical processes were found to be nearly the same for a given titer, yield, and productivity. The estimated MSP of biobased commodity chemicals produced via aerobic respiration was found to be nearly 30% higher than those of produced through anaerobic fermentation. It was determined that biocatalyst yields of ≥0.32 g/g and titers of ≥45 g/L result in lower production cost, energy consumption, and GHG emissions, when compared to conventional petrochemical production processes. The economic and environmental benefits of improving titer beyond 125 g/L and volumetric productivity beyond 2 g/L·h were found to be low when producing biobased commodity chemicals using a biocatalyst. Comparative economic analysis indicated that provision of feedstock is the dominant cost in commercially viable biobased commodity chemical production systems

Heuristics To Guide the Development of Sustainable, Biomass-Derived, Platform Chemical Derivatives

Hundreds of catalytic routes to upgrade biomass-derived platform chemicals have been proposed. In this study, we developed process selection and development heuristics for these catalytic transformations from techno-economic analysis of catalytically upgrading furfural (a potential platform chemical) to eight derivatives that vary in chemical functionality and process complexity. These heuristics included simple cost equations based on catalyst performance as well as process complexity to predict the minimum selling price of platform chemical derivatives. Additionally, design rules were developed to guide the development of catalytic technologies for upgrading platform chemicals. The conversion of platform chemicals to hydrocarbons must be avoided. For commercial relevance, attaining catalyst yield of 60% and weight hourly space velocity of at least on the order of 0.1 h^–1 are necessary. Precious metal catalysts, such as Pt, cannot be used if the desired platform chemical derivative is priced below 1.00 (US$/kg). Finally, it has been learned that the feasible plant size of platform chemical production is comparable to that of a lignocellulosic-based biofuel production