SBIR Phase II: Method of Disinfecting Precursor Materials using Plant Essential Oils for a New Material Technology

这个小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目寻求进一步开发并规模化展示一种生物消毒工艺，该工艺显示出比蒸汽巴氏杀菌法更好的微生物灭活，而且成本更低。这一过程利用稀释浓度(以体积计为0.5-0.875%)的植物来源的酚和醛来灭活较低水平的真菌和在农业副产品(种皮和外壳)上发现的细菌。本演示的应用重点是一种新的材料技术，该技术使用丝状真菌将木质纤维废料转化为高性能、低成本的合成材料(塑料和泡沫)的替代品。该生物消毒工艺可使工艺能耗降低83%，系统投资费用降低50%以上。该项目将全面量化这一消毒过程的规模(生产量)的有效性，并分析将这项技术整合到真菌材料生产设施中的情况，该设施目前适用于保护包装行业。将探索间歇式和连续式系统，并将根据结果开发综合经济模型。在本示范下生产的真菌材料将与现有巴氏杀菌系统制造的材料进行比较，样品将由客户进行评估，以确保产品采用。高能耗消毒工艺，高压灭菌或巴氏杀菌，在农业、食品加工和生物技术等行业中普遍存在。实施这些方法是为了减少或去除背景生物杂质(细菌、酵母菌、霉菌)，这些生物杂质可能会因污染而对下游工艺造成损害。真菌材料生产就是这样一个过程，因为原材料污染会导致产品损失和增加劳动力。植物精油(PEO)消毒技术在第一阶段研究中被证明具有与蒸汽巴氏杀菌相当的工艺时间和优越的消毒效果，因此该技术可以在一些工业应用中作为替代技术。由于降低了系统复杂性和能源消耗，这一过程最大限度地降低了资本、设备和运营成本。关于真菌产品的生产，这种消毒过程通过延长污染灭活期来增强过程的健壮性，从而促进菌丝的快速定植或缩短孵化时间。因此，可以解决真菌材料的新市场机会，同时进一步支持使用家庭农业废弃物作为原材料的区域制造的商业理由。最后，从这种新的消毒过程中获得的好处允许加快部署和开发统包生产系统，以取代合成材料。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project seeks to further develop, and demonstrate at scale, a biological disinfection process that has exhibited superior microbial inactivation to steam pasteurization at a lower cost. This process leverages dilute concentrations (0.5-0.875% by volume) of plant-derived phenols and aldehydes to inactivate lower level fungi and bacteria found on agricultural byproducts (seed husks and hulls). The application focus for this demonstration is a novel material technology that converts lignocellulosic waste into a high performance, low cost replacement for synthetics (plastics and foams) using a filamentous fungus. This biological disinfection process can reduce process energy consumption by 83% and system capital expense by upwards of 50%. This project will fully quantify the efficacy of this disinfection process at scale (production volumes) as well as analyze the integration of this technique into a mycological material production facility that is presently addressing the protective packaging industry. Batch and continuous systems will be explored, and a comprehensive economic model will be developed based on the results. The mycological materials that are produced under this demonstration will be compared with materials fabricated with the existing pasteurization system, and samples will be evaluated by customers to ensure product adoption.High-embodied energy disinfection processes, autoclave sterilization or pasteurization, are ubiquitous within industries such as agriculture, food processing, and biotechnology. These methodologies are implemented to reduce or remove background bioburden (bacteria, yeast, mold) that can be detrimental to downstream processes due to contamination. Mycological materials production represents such a process since raw material contamination results in product loss and added labor. The plant essential oil (PEO) disinfection technique was proven under the Phase I research to offer a comparable process time to steam pasteurization and superior disinfection efficacy; thus this technology could serve as a drop-in replacement in some industrial applications. This process minimizes capital equipment and operations costs due a reduction in system complexity and energy consumption. In regards to the production of mycological products, this disinfection process bolsters the process robustness by extending contaminate inactivation periods which promotes rapid mycelium colonization or a reduction in incubation time. Therefore new market opportunities for mycological materials can be addressed while further supporting the business case for regional manufacturing using domestic agricultural waste as raw materials. Finally, the benefits obtained from this novel disinfection process permit an accelerated deployment and development of turnkey production systems to displace synthetic materials.