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Blended Biomass allows more Bagasse as Feedstock for Furfural! 

A report on blended biomass for cogeneration, by Amaury Perez Sanchez: Cuba, like other countries with few fossil energy resources, has used biomass to fuel its industrial processes for decades. More recently, it has worked to improve efficiency and increase the role that these plants play in supplying grid power.

DalinYebo's Comment: Using sugarcane bagasse for electricity cogeneration is a well established practise. A recent reports suggestions blended biomass for co-firing of additional 'waste' biomass in a sugar mill. However, bagasse, in our humble opinion, is a more valuable biomass feedstock for fuels, chemicals, paper, feed etc., than just another fuel source. Supplying a bagasse-fired boiler with a biomass blend is a first step in releasing this value, as it would make more bagasse available for the production of furfural. The Biomass.Market™ platform helps sugar millers in managing the supply of additional, blended biomass .

The sugarcane agribusiness has supported the Cuban economy for decades, and nowadays it plays an important role in the rapid development and growth of the country’s internal and external markets. Today, sugarcane biomass constitutes the energy source with highest potential in the medium to long term, as Cuba is an agricultural country with a sugarcane industry that generates millions of tons per year of high-energy-value residues.

However, the once-strong Cuban sugar industry, which was capable of producing up to eight million tons of sugar per year, hit the bottom in 2009–2010 when total sugar production tumbled to 1.1 million metric tons (mt), the lowest level in 105 years. The situation is beginning to improve, and the administration is taking some important measures to boost efficiency and increase production. ...

 

Read the full report @ Bagasse and Blended Biomass Cogeneration Advances (Cuban Example) | Biomass Blog

 For a related article, see www.ipsnews.net.

 

  • Bagasse
  • Biobased Energy
  • Blended Biomass
  • Cogeneration
  • Green Electricity
  • Biomass.Market™...

Source:  http://www.dalinyebo.com/item/1226-bagasse-and-blended-biomass-cogeneration

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 La Belle au bois dormant (“The Beauty in the Sleeping Woods”).

We recently had the opportunity to share the story of International Furan Technology (Pty) Ltd at the Innovation and Investment Forum of WFC2015: XiV World Forestry Congress in Durban. 

"Story telling is one of the great African traditions and in that tradition, honourable delegates, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, your Excellency Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology, let me try to share with you our story of

  1. how we took a biorefining idea first to the labs, then
  2. got it financed and
  3. commercialised it.

In order to do that, I shall first introduce you to the chemical, its market place and then highlight in five or so minutes a journey that started in 1998."

The slide's narrative, which follows-on from Gianluca's theme of the "Sleeping Beauty", can be downloaded here (by registered users).

WFC2015, XIV World Forestry Congress

Subtheme 4: Encouraging product innovation an sustainable trade

Dialogue 1 -4: Innovation and Investment Forum

Sub session 3: From the Labs to the Marketplace

Thursday 10 Sep 2015, 08h30 – 11h20.

Chair:  Jukka Tissari (FAO)

Keynote: Charlie Clarke (Sappi): SA biorefinery development

Panel (left to right): 

Elizabeth de Carvalhaes (Ibá, Brazil)

Jegatheswaran Ratnasingam (Univ Putra Malaysia)

Philipp Steiner (CEO of International Furan Technology (Pty) Ltd)

Johann Görgens (Univ. of Stellenbosch, SA)

Chris Nicholson (IDC, South Africa)

Riikka Joukio (Metsä Group): Bioproduct mill and a globally unique ecosystem for bioeconomy

Moderator: Ms Roberta Annan

Erkki Hellen (VTT, Finland): New opportunities with nanocelluloses and foam technologies

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 Image: flickr.com

  • Furfural
  • Biorefineries
  • Pulp Mills
  • BBSBiorefining™...

Source:  http://www.dalinyebo.com/item/1224-from-the-labs-to-the-markets-the-furfural-story

Beautiful Biotechnology for Biofuels

Graphical abstract: Propane synthesis derived from a fermentative butanol pathway is enabled by metabolic engineering (biotechnologyforbiofuels.com).

µ-BioRefinery™ or n-BioRefinery™ are two of DalinYebo’s biorefining platforms that are designed for future technologies such as the one described in the the following research article:

A microbial platform for renewable propane synthesis based on a fermentative butanol pathway (Abstract)

Navya Menon, András Pásztor, Binuraj RK Menon, Pauli Kallio, Karl Fisher, M Kalim Akhtar, David Leys, Patrik R Jones and Nigel S Scrutton

Background

Propane (C3H8) is a volatile hydrocarbon with highly favourable physicochemical properties as a fuel, in addition to existing global markets and infrastructure for storage, distribution and utilization in a wide range of applications. Consequently, propane is an attractive target product in research aimed at developing new renewable alternatives to complement currently used petroleum-derived fuels. This study focuses on the construction and evaluation of alternative microbial biosynthetic pathways for the production of renewable propane. The new pathways utilize CoA intermediates that are derived from clostridial-like fermentative butanol pathways and are therefore distinct from the first microbial propane pathways recently engineered in Escherichia coli.

Results

We report the assembly and evaluation of four different synthetic pathways for the production of propane and butanol, designated a) atoB–adhE2 route, b) atoB–TPC7 route, c) nphT7–adhE2 route and d) nphT7–TPC7 route. The highest butanol titres were achieved with the atoB-adhE2 (473 ± 3 mg/L) and atoB-TPC7 (163 ± 2 mg/L) routes. When aldehyde deformylating oxygenase (ADO) was co-expressed with these pathways, the engineered hosts also produced propane. The atoB-TPC7-ADO pathway was the most effective in producing propane (220 ± 3 μg/L). By (i) deleting competing pathways, (ii) including a previously designed ADOA134F variant with an enhanced specificity towards short-chain substrates and (iii) including a ferredoxin-based electron supply system, the propane titre was increased (3.40 ± 0.19 mg/L).

Conclusions

This study expands the metabolic toolbox for renewable propane production and provides new insight and understanding for the development of next-generation biofuel platforms. In developing an alternative CoA-dependent fermentative butanol pathway, which includes an engineered ADO variant (ADOA134F), the study addresses known limitations, including the low bio-availability of butyraldehyde precursors and poor activity of ADO with butyraldehyde.

Reference

Biotechnology for Biofuels 2015, 8:61  doi:10.1186/s13068-015-0231-1

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biotechnologyforbiofuels.com/content/8/1/61

Source:  https://dalinyebo.wordpress.com/2015/08/12/beautiful-biotechnology-for-biofuels/

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 One-pot furfural conversion, using a zeolite catalyst

Our International Furan Technology (Pty) Ltd subsidiary supplies biomass processing technologies for the manufacture of furfural (and other bio-renewable chemicals). We therefore have our 'radar screen' set on new processes or down-stream product developments and as a result, the following research caught our interest.

Heterogeneous, stable catalyst promoting acid and reduction routes to bio-products.

Abstract [1]

Aiming at the valorisation of furfural via sustainable routes based on process intensification and heterogeneous catalysis, the one-pot conversion of this renewable platform chemical to useful bio-products, namely furfuryl alkyl ethers (FEs), levulinate esters (LEs), levulinic acid (LA), angelica lactones (AnLs) and γ-valerolactone (GVL), was investigated using a single heterogeneous catalyst, in 2-butanol, at 120 °C. Various chemical reactions are involved in this process, which requires catalysts with active sites for acid and reduction chemistry. For this purpose, it was explored for the first time the catalytic potentialities of modified versions of zeolite beta containing Al and Sn sites prepared from commercially available nanocrystalline zeolite beta via post-synthesis partial dealumination followed by solid-state ion-exchange. The post-synthesis conditions influenced considerably the catalytic performances of these types of materials. The best-performing catalyst was (Sn)SSIE-beta1 with Si/(Al + Sn) = 19 (Sn/Al = 27), which led to total yield of bio-products of 83% at 86% Fur conversion, and exhibited steady catalytic performance for six consecutive runs. A systematic catalytic study using the prepared catalysts with different bio-products as substrates, together with the molecular level and microstructural characterisation of the materials, helped understand the effects of different material properties on the specific reaction pathways in the overall system. These studies led to mechanistic insights into the reaction network of Fur to the bio-products in alcohol media, upon which a kinetic model was developed for the first time. The superior performance of (Sn)SSIE-beta1 in various steps was related to the dealumination degree, dispersion and amount of Sn-sites, and acid properties. Continue

Reference

[1] sciencedirect.com

  • Biorenewable Chemicals
  • Furfural
  • Levulinic Acid...

Source:  http://www.dalinyebo.com/levulinic-acid-and-other-biobased-chemicals

image
 One-pot furfural conversion, using a zeolite catalyst

Our International Furan Technology (Pty) Ltd subsidiary supplies biomass processing technologies for the manufacture of furfural (and other bio-renewable chemicals). We therefore have our 'radar screen' set on new processes or down-stream product developments and as a result, the following research caught our interest.

Heterogeneous, stable catalyst promoting acid and reduction routes to bio-products.

Abstract [1]

Aiming at the valorisation of furfural via sustainable routes based on process intensification and heterogeneous catalysis, the one-pot conversion of this renewable platform chemical to useful bio-products, namely furfuryl alkyl ethers (FEs), levulinate esters (LEs), levulinic acid (LA), angelica lactones (AnLs) and γ-valerolactone (GVL), was investigated using a single heterogeneous catalyst, in 2-butanol, at 120 °C. Various chemical reactions are involved in this process, which requires catalysts with active sites for acid and reduction chemistry. For this purpose, it was explored for the first time the catalytic potentialities of modified versions of zeolite beta containing Al and Sn sites prepared from commercially available nanocrystalline zeolite beta via post-synthesis partial dealumination followed by solid-state ion-exchange. The post-synthesis conditions influenced considerably the catalytic performances of these types of materials. The best-performing catalyst was (Sn)SSIE-beta1 with Si/(Al + Sn) = 19 (Sn/Al = 27), which led to total yield of bio-products of 83% at 86% Fur conversion, and exhibited steady catalytic performance for six consecutive runs. A systematic catalytic study using the prepared catalysts with different bio-products as substrates, together with the molecular level and microstructural characterisation of the materials, helped understand the effects of different material properties on the specific reaction pathways in the overall system. These studies led to mechanistic insights into the reaction network of Fur to the bio-products in alcohol media, upon which a kinetic model was developed for the first time. The superior performance of (Sn)SSIE-beta1 in various steps was related to the dealumination degree, dispersion and amount of Sn-sites, and acid properties. Continue

Reference

[1] sciencedirect.com

  • Biorenewable Chemicals
  • Furfural
  • Levulinic Acid...

Source:  http://dalinyebo.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1222:levulinic-acid-and-other-biobased-chemicals-via-one-pot-conversion-of-furfural&Itemid=2828

More Articles ...

  1. Carbon Capture, Storage Energy Saving (an idea)
  2. California won’t list furfuryl alcohol under Prop 65
  3. Biorefineries Give Local Farmers Opportunities for Additional Income
  4. Bioeconomy: $369bn and 4 Million Jobs Added to US Economy in 2013
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