BIOBASED CHEMICALS that Tsipias cited . This amounts to about 62 million tonnes / year , equating to about 133,000 tonnes in the UK , about half of it in Scotland . More still is lost during processing , despite some use in fish oils and animal feed , and has to be incinerated . Having recently acquired a second site near Edinburgh and moved into IB , Impact has carried out a first project with IBioIC and the University of Edinburgh to address these issues . They used a combination of lowenergy , non-intensive processes to homogenise the waste mechanically with some off-the-shelf enzymes . This produced a feedstock rich in fatty acids , mostly monounsaturated or saturated C 18
s . These were transformed by engineering and expressing enzymes in E . coli to further transform it into adipic acid . The energy requirements are low and the reaction can be carried out in water and ultimately in one pot at only 37 ° C . The by-products can be valorised . “ This is not just a showcase of one route . A whole biorefinery process could come after that ,” Tsipias said . Impact Solutions has now formed a partnership with a major speciality chemical firm , Lubrizol .
Forming formate
Another IBioIC member , Ingenza , is a University of Edinburgh spin-out that is active in multiple areas of industrial and synthetic biology . Recently , it had been interested in making the enzyme formate hydrogen lyase ( FHL ) act as a hydrogen-dependent CO 2 reductase , the reverse of its natural function . A six-month project Ingenza did with the University of Dundee and Sasol UK proved that , under the right pressure conditions , hydrogen and
CO 2 can be blended to generate about half-molar formic acid in a batch reactor . Ingenza is now starting a twoyear project to see if FHL can also be used as a viable industrial biocatalyst for carbon capture , utilisation and storage ( CCUS ) applications . Formate itself is a potential byproduct of this and is an interesting
Brown – Ingenza will seek to make formate as part of the biofuel process
commodity chemical for use in animal feeds , materials processing , food preservation , detergents and deicing . More interesting for Ingenza , Brown said , is that it can also be used as a co-feedstock in fermentation bioprocessing and as an efficient hydrogen carrier . The project will look at improving catalyst performance via engineering biology , while also developing a scalable fixed-bed reactor to capture the CO 2
. “ The ideal is that we will able to apply this at point source emissions in an industrial setting ,” Brown said . Ultimately , Ingenza hopes to develop an application for continuous CCUS . “ If the technology works , we could imagine integrating it into biofuel production such that any off-gas liberated from the fermentation could
J j
Ian Stone
UK INDUSTRY EVENTS
CHEMUK ian . stone @ ukindustryevents . com www . chemuk . com be piped into the fixed-bed reactor and converted to formate , which would then be added as a feedstock into the biofuel process ,” said Brown . The outputs could include :
• Increased bioethanol production
• Making the whole process carbon-negative
• Reduced raw material costs Ingenza subsequently received a grant of £ 441,632.88 from the Department of Business , Energy & Industrial Strategy to develop the technology in partnership with Johnson Matthey ( JM ). This is part of a £ 1 billion fund from the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio . JM will further develop the engineered biocatalyst made by Ingenza into a “ costcompetitive and scalable format for industry ”. •
J j
Liz Fletcher
DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT
IBIOIC liz . fletcher @ ibioic . com www . ibioic . com
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