Towards a competitive bio-butanol production from agro-food-wastes
Walter Wukovits
ETIP Bioenergy Workshop Emerging Technologies
December 4, 2018
w w w . w a s t e 2 f u e l s . e u
Grant agreement no: 654623
H 2 0 2 0 – L C E - 1 1 - 2 0 1 5
Waste2FuelsSustainable Production of Next Generation Biofuels from Waste Streams
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Advantages/Disadvantages Butanol
(Source: Ranjan & Moholkar, 2012)
� High energy content
� Low water absorption and miscibility with water
� Low vapor pressure
� Good blending ability
� Low corrosivity
� High feedstock costs
� Low productivity / product concentration
� High costs for down-streaming (heat/energy demanding)
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Project Facts
� H2020-LCE-11-2015: “Developing next generation technologies for biofuels and sustainable alternative fuels”
� Research and Innovation Action (RIA) - TRL 3/4 to 4/5.
� 36 month duration
� 6 Mio Euro budget
� 20 partners / 8 Countries
� Develop next generation biofuels technologies
� Contribute to a decentralized energy production
� Produce bio-butanol as sustainable alternative fuel
� Enlarge the current biomass feedstock basis
� Convert unavoidable agrofood waste streams (AFW)
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Waste2Fuels Scheme
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Feedstock and Pretreatment
� Establish an optimized AFW matrix
� Suitable biomass pretreatment/hydrolysis
� Delignification, Detoxification
� Optimize the enzymatic hydrolysis step
- commercial + designed cellulosomes
� Select non-carbon sources for ABE fermentation
Auto-hydrolysis
Partners involved: ITACYL, BIOPOX; TRL: 3/4 � 5
Pretreatment + Hydrolysis: 65-80 g/L fermentable sugars
Chemical
(PEG6000)
Chemical
(HNO3)
Auto-hydrolysis
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ABE Fermentation/Recovery
� Design an innovative bioreactor system for ABE fermentation
� Design and operate butanol recovery systems – adsorption, gas
stripping, pervaporation, (rectification)
� Select best performing recovery system
� Set-up and operate a coupled fermentation-recovery system
1. Stage
Aceto-
genic
2. Stage
Solvento-
genic
Downstream
to distillation
In-situ product
recovery
Inhibition level
Co
nce
ntr
ati
on
Stages of fermentation and product recovery
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ABE Fermentation
� Continuous ABE fermentation
� Innovative reactor cascade
Partners involved: UNINA, IRIS, SOLARIS; TRL: 3/4 � 5/6
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ABE Recovery via Pervaporation
� Cross-flow pervaporation setup
� Flat sheet /hollow fibre modules
� Material: PDMS, POMS
� Feed: 100 l/h flowrate, 35 °CA:B:E = 3:6:1 by weight
� 10 mbar(a) permeate pressure
� Analysis by GC-FID/HPLC
TI
TI
FI
PI
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ABE Recovery via Pervaporation
� Substrates and intermediates (organic acids) are widely retained
� Separation performance decreasedusing real fermentation broth
� No influence of secondary components in synthetic fermentation broth
Feed:
BuOH 1.5 wt%
AcO 0.75 wt%
EtOH 0.25 wt%
Water 97.5 wt%
Permeate:
BuOH 31.5 wt%
AcO 24.0 wt%
EtOH 1.5 wt%
Water 43.0 wt%
Membrane Type Separation factor αi/j [-]
Synthetic Real
Butanol 29.0 18.8
Acetone 53.3 24.7
Ethanol 9.2 5.6
Glucose 0 0
Acetic acid - 0.8
Propionic acid - 1.1
Butyric acid - 1.7
Single stage cross-flow pervaporation
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ABE Recovery - Comparison
Process Recovery
[%]
Enrichment factor
[-]
BuOH AcO EtOH BuOH AcO EtOH
Pervaporation 100 100 100 29 53 9
Adsorption 100 100 100 50 3.1 3.9
Gas stripping 80 51 64 9.2 6.5 8.4
Partners involved: TUW (PV), ITACYL (Stripping), UNINA (AD)
TRL: 4 � 5/6
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ABE Recovery –Energy Demand
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5Sp
eci
fic
en
erg
y d
em
an
d in
MJ/
kg
Bu
tan
ol
Butanol in Feed in %(m/m)
Pervaporation POMS/ABE distillation Stripping/ABE distillation
Adsorption/Butanol distillation ABE Disitillation
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
1.00 1.05 1.10 1.15 1.20 1.25 1.30 1.35 1.40 1.45 1.50Spe
cifi
c e
ne
rgy
de
ma
nd
in
MJ/
kg
Bu
tan
ol
Butanol in Feed in %(m/m)
Pervaporation POMS Broth column Acetone column
Ethanol column Butanol column
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
1.00 1.05 1.10 1.15 1.20 1.25 1.30 1.35 1.40 1.45 1.50
Sp
eci
fic
en
erg
y d
em
an
d i
n M
J/k
g
Bu
tan
ol
Butanol in Feed in %(m/m)
Adsorption Butanol column
Van der Merwe, A.B.,
Cheng, H., Görgens, J.F.,
Knoetze, J.H., 2013. Fuel.
105, 451-458.
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Next Steps / Future Plans
� Pretreatment and Hydrolysis
• Application of Deep Eutectic and “Green” Solvents
• Sequential laccase delignification and cellulose hydrolysis
� Fermentation
• Scale-up of reactor cascade (ongoing)
• Long-time operation of fermenter system
• Coupling of fermentation and ABE recovery
� ABE Recovery
• Tests with real fermentation broth (pervaporation)
• Coupling of fermentation and ABE recovery (adsorption)
• Design and optimization of hybrid recovery/purification systems
beyond the advanced precision agriculture/farming systems.
PartnersPartners
www.waste2fuels.euThis project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research
and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654623
Contact: [email protected]
Thank you for your attention!
