Mike Schultz will be presenting at ACHEMA 2024

Presentation topic: Navigating the Bumpy Road of Industrial Biotechnology Scale-up

We have seen a growth in products from Industrial Biotechnology, with commercial technologies emerging in areas such as:
• Fuels. Sustainable Aviation Fuel, Green Diesel, and Ethanol from low cost feedstocks
• Chemicals. Drop-in replacements for industrial chemicals such as propanediol and butanediol, made through biological routes instead of conventional petroleum based options
• Alternative routes for proteins, fats, and meat
• Materials for building projects, fabrics, electronics
The drivers for this growth include a focus on sustainability, and a drive to enable circularity through reuse of carbon and carbon-based products. Some technologies offer the potential to make use of a lower cost source of carbon, through use of waste feedstocks such as industrial gaseous emissions, biogas, end of life plastic, and waste biomass. In addition, in some cases the bioproduct is a better product than the petroleum-based version, coming with a cheaper, safer processing route and performance advantages over traditional materials.

The road we travel while commercializing new technologies like these is often bumpy, with many challenges along the way. In order to be successful we must address these challenges while also: 1) reducing technology risk 2) reducing time to market 3) optimizing/minimizing cost and 4) maximizing value.

These are often competing objectives, and usually reducing time to market and reducing risk win out. Of course, if the capital and operating cost are too high, then a new technology will not be successful, so these criteria cannot be ignored.

This presentation will provide guidelines and best practices for the scale-up and design of industrial bioprocessing technology, to reduce time, cost, and risk of commercialization. These guidelines include elements such as:

Creative Process Engineering: The flow scheme is developed, the material balance is estimated, and key process design decisions are identified to establish the best process flowsheet for the technology.

Modeling & Analysis: A good model can save time and resources in the lab. Coupled with the right analysis, the scale-up team can prioritize objectives in the lab, pilot, and demo units.

Experimental Data: The right data is needed to prove out breakthrough ideas, secure partners and investors, and develop engineering data for equipment design. Multi-scale data is critical to this effort, and with good planning, multiple assets and external resources can be leveraged.

The key benefits of this approach are:
• Prioritization of R&D to de-risk and optimize the new technology.
• Identification of cost reduction opportunities throughout the scale-up effort.
• Anticipation of process design needs as early as possible.

In this presentation, these concepts will be illustrated with real world examples from personal experience with scale-up of industrial bioprocessing projects.

Mike Schultz will be presenting in the ‘CO2 Utilisation Technologies’ Session

Presentation topic: Gas Fermentation – An Emerging Technology for CO2-based Fuels and Chemicals

Gas fermentation is an emerging technology in the field of industrial biotechnology, with the potential to play a key role in the growth of CO2 based fuels and chemicals. While much of the work in the field of gas fermentation to date has been focused on the conversion of methane or carbon monoxide, we are seeing growing developments in the field of direct CO2 conversion via fermentation to useful products. These products include a diverse array of fuels and chemicals such as ethanol, ethylene, triglycerides for fuel or chemical applications, proteins, and polyesters for polymer applications.

Gas fermentation provides inherent benefits as compared to thermochemical pathways for CO2 conversion, including lower cost operating conditions, robustness to fluctuations in feed rate and composition, and tolerance to contaminants in the gaseous feeds.

In addition, interesting hybrid applications are emerging in which thermochemical and electrochemical conversion pathways are coupled with gas fermentation to convert CO2 to a feedstock for gas fermentation, as well as thermochemical conversion of products from gas fermentation.

A key challenge of gas fermentation is the need to design an economic reactor system with high mass transfer coefficients for the gaseous feedstocks into an aqueous media. While CO2 is generally quite soluble in the fermentation media, the most common coreactants, including hydrogen and possibly oxygen, are much less soluble. Various reactor types have been developed to address this challenge, ranging from relatively simple bubble columns (a lower mass transfer option) and more complex designs such as air lift reactors and external loop designs. Typically, higher mass transfer is possible with the tradeoff of a more complex design.

Additional challenges include a limited (but growing) knowledge base in the design of appropriate reaction systems, as well as kinetic data to support reactor design. This presentation will review the industrial applications of gas fermentation for CO2 conversion and provide a detailed assessment of the benefits and challenges of gas fermentation.

This presentation will also provide an overview of the gas fermentation reactor options and design considerations that can enhance mass transfer of the reactants. Finally, the presentation will propose a call to action for areas of research and development that can support the emerging f