Bio­elec­tro­chem­ic­al pro­cesses have the poten­tial to one day replace petrochemistry

Research­ers at UFZ and the Uni­ver­sity of Queens­land have found that the elec­tri­fic­a­tion of the indus­tri­al bio­tech­no­logy is not merely a green dream, but an altern­at­ive to pet­ro­chem­istry with real­ist­ic eco­nom­ic­al poten­tial. Com­pared to clas­sic­al sug­ar based bio-pro­cesses, bio­elec­tro­chem­ic­al pro­cesses prom­ise improved yields, which could turn out to be a real game changer. The next gen­er­a­tion of bio-pro­duc­tion facil­it­ies may not only become more envir­on­ment­ally friendly, but also more eco­nom­ic­ally competitive. In con­trast to the energy and fuel sec­tors that are influ­enced by gov­ern­ment tar­gets for green altern­at­ives, the chem­ic­al industry is mainly driv­en by mar­ket mech­an­isms. Com­pan­ies and con­sumers are gen­er­ally not pre­pared to pay a green premi­um for products. This means that com­pared to clas­sic­al pet­ro­chem­ic­al pro­cesses, bio-pro­duc­tion of chem­ic­als needs to be cheap­er, or in case of com­par­able costs, offer added value for com­pan­ies to take the risk of invest­ment into a new pro­duc­tion pro­cess. Nev­er­the­less, it is expec­ted that the share of bio-derived‚ green chem­ic­als will sig­ni­fic­antly rise over the next dec­ade. This mar­ket is at the centre of the so called‚ ​‘indus­tri­al bio­tech­no­logy’, focus­sing on bio­tech­no­lo­gic­al pro­cesses for the pro­duc­tion of indus­tri­al chem­ic­als, which is dis­tinct from med­ic­al (red) and plant (green) bio­tech­no­logy. In nov­el pro­cesses at lab-scale, fuels and chem­ic­als can already be pro­duced bio-elec­tro­chem­ic­ally, using micro­bi­al syn­thes­is driv­en by elec­tri­city and car­bon sources. How­ever, achiev­ing a broad­er elec­tri­fic­a­tion of indus­tri­al bio­tech­no­logy is still a chal­lenge, due to the inher­ently dif­fer­ent optim­al con­di­tions for elec­tro­chem­ic­al and micro­bi­al meta­bol­ic reac­tions. The cur­rent know­ledge gaps still require a sys­tem­at­ic R&D effort before the tech­no­logy can be intro­duced more broadly, as the research­ers high­light in their study. In order to bet­ter estim­ate the eco­nom­ic poten­tial of the new tech­no­logy, the research­ers used the well-estab­lished biopro­cess of Lys­ine pro­duc­tion and ana­lysed how the sup­ply of elec­tri­city as a feed for the bac­teria could change the eco­nom­ics of this pro­cess. The sci­ent­ists now com­pared the sav­ing in raw mater­i­als costs, if the elec­tri­city would serve as a source of redox power, rather than sug­ar oxid­a­tion, so that all sug­ar could poten­tially be used to build the lys­ine molecules. Based on dif­fer­ent elec­tri­city prices in the EU and the US, dif­fer­ent scen­ari­os had to be con­sidered. Assum­ing cur­rent mar­ket prices for sucrose as the main feed­stock and bulk elec­tri­city charges on the two con­tin­ents it was estim­ated that the elec­tric­ally enhanced pro­duc­tion could save costs of between 8.4% and 18 % in the EU and the US, respect­ively. ​“This does not even con­sider sav­ings in down­stream pro­cessing due to a reduced pro­duc­tion of by-products, which is expec­ted due to the bet­ter redox bal­ance” Dr Krömer (UQ) said. ​“If one spec­u­lates fur­ther and estim­ates sav­ings over a ten year hori­zon for a typ­ic­al 50000 t p.a. plant, one would save 30 Mil­lion US$ in the EU and 50 Mil­lion US$ in the US.” Dr Har­nisch (UFZ) adds. While this ignores the addi­tion­al invest­ment costs to enable the bio-elec­tro­chem­istry, which can cur­rently not be reli­ably estim­ated for large scale, this example nev­er­the­less shows that bio-elec­tro­chem­ic­al pro­duc­tion of chem­ic­als can also become inter­est­ing from an eco­nom­ic­al point of view. Bio­elec­tro­chem­ic­al tech­no­logy is an approach with far reach­ing poten­tial, which is sup­por­ted by the fact that Chem­Sus­Chem, a journ­al devoted to sus­tain­able chem­istry, high­lights the cur­rent study on its cov­er page.

Pub­lic­a­tion:

Har­nisch, F., Rosa, L. F. M., Kracke, F., Vird­is, B. and Krömer, J. O. (2014): Elec­tri­fy­ing White Bio­tech­no­logy: Engin­eer­ing and Eco­nom­ic Poten­tial of Elec­tri­city-Driv­en Bio-Pro­duc­tion. Chem­Sus­Chem. doi: 10.1002/cssc.201402736 http://​dx​.doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​2​/​c​s​s​c​.​2​0​1​4​02736. The stud­ies were fun­ded by the Ger­man Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research (BMBF) (BMBF-Ini­ti­at­ive ​„Näch­ste Gen­er­a­tion bio­tech­no­lo­gis­cher Ver­fahren — Bio­tech­no­lo­gie 2020+”), the Helm­holtz Asso­ci­ation (Young Invest­ig­at­ors Group & Research Pro­gram Renew­able Ener­gie) and the Uni­ver­sity of Queens­land. Source: idw / UFZ, Tilo Arnhold