I-Corps: Sustainable manufacturing of natural vanillin

从生物质中生产高价值化学品是一个越来越受关注的领域，特别是在对天然和可持续产品需求不断增长的香料和香料行业。这个I-Corps团队开发了从非食物生物质中生产天然阿魏酸的工艺。天然阿魏酸盐对香料和香料工业很重要，因为它被用来生产非常理想的天然香草。香草是香精香料行业中最重要的产品之一。全球香料和香料化学品市场是一个200亿美元的产业，年增长率为4.3%。目前，香草在全球市场上的产值约为10亿美元，产量为1.3万吨。天然香草是市场的重要组成部分，占总量的2400吨。这项技术的成功商业化将为国内从非粮食生物质来源生产可再生和可持续的天然香兰素提供一条途径。该团队开发了专有技术，可选择性地将木质素升级为香料和香料工业中使用的高价值化学品。该技术的一项新应用旨在从生物质中生产天然阿魏酸，同时通过I-Corps的发现过程更好地了解客户需求。发现过程的目标是验证假设，即从非食物生物质中产生的天然阿魏酸将是天然香兰素生产商所需的有价值的产品。该项目的范围包括与相关行业联系人进行100多次访谈，以检验假设。所采用的方法将侧重于与整个价值链的成员进行访谈，包括；生物质供应商，阿魏酸盐和香兰素生产商，风味和香味化合物和配方商，分销商。随着项目在原型阶段的推进，这项发现工作将提供必要的数据和理解。原型放大将通过已经建成的内部反应堆的组合进行，也将利用收费制造。来自原型放大的数据将与I-Corps访谈产生的数据结合使用，以深入了解拟议过程的商业可行性，并为进一步扩大规模提供建议。

Production of high value chemicals from biomass is an area of increasing interest, especially in the Flavor and Fragrance industry where there is a growing demand for natural and sustainable products. This I-Corps team has developed processes to produce natural ferulate from non-food biomass. Natural ferulate is important to the Flavor and Fragrance Industry as it is used to produce the highly desired natural vanilla. Vanilla is one of the most important products sold in the Flavor and Fragrance Industry. The global flavor and fragrance chemicals market is a $20 billion industry with continuing annual growth rate of 4.3%. At the present time, vanilla represents around $1 billion of this global market with a 13,000 metric ton production volume. Naturally derived vanilla is an important segment of the market and constitutes 2,400 metric tons of this volume. Successful commercialization of this technology would provide a route for domestic production of renewable and sustainable natural vanillin from non-food biomass sources.This team has developed proprietary technologies for selective upgrading of wood lignin to high value chemicals used in the flavor and fragrance industries. A new application of this technology seeks to produce natural ferulate from biomass, while simultaneously working to better understand the customer needs through the I-Corps discovery process. The goal of the discovery process is to validate the hypothesis that natural ferulate produced from non-food biomass will be a valuable product desired by producers of natural vanillin. The scope of the project includes over 100 interviews with relevant industry contacts to test the hypothesis. Methods employed will focus on interviews with members of the entire value chain including; biomass suppliers, producers of ferulate and vanillin, flavor and fragrance compounders and formulators, and distributors. This discovery work will provide essential data and understanding as the project advances in the prototype stage. Prototype scale-up will be conducted through a combination of already constructed in-house reactors, and will also utilize toll manufacturing. Data from the prototype scale-up will be used in combination with the data generated through I-Corps interviews to provide great insight into the commercial viability of the proposed process and recommendations for further scaling.