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，特别是在香精香料行业，对天然和可持续产品的需求不断增长。这个I-Corps团队开发了从非食品生物质中生产天然阿魏酸的工艺。天然阿魏酸对香精香料工业很重要，因为它用于生产高度期望的天然香草。香草是香精香料工业中最重要的产品之一。全球香料和香精化学品市场是一个价值200亿美元的行业，年增长率为4.3%。 目前，香草占全球市场的10亿美元左右，产量为13，000公吨。天然香草是市场的一个重要部分，占这一数量的2，400公吨。该技术的成功商业化将为国内从非食品生物质来源生产可再生和可持续的天然香草醛提供一条途径。该团队开发了专有技术，用于选择性地将木材木质素升级为用于香料和香精行业的高价值化学品。这项技术的一个新应用是从生物质中生产天然阿魏酸，同时通过I-Corps发现过程更好地了解客户需求。发现过程的目标是验证由非食品生物质生产的天然阿魏酸盐将是天然香草醛生产商所需的有价值产品的假设。该项目的范围包括与相关行业联系人进行的100多次访谈，以验证这一假设。所采用的方法将集中在整个价值链的成员，包括采访;生物质供应商，阿魏酸和香草醛，香精香料化合物和配方，和分销商的生产商。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。原型放大将通过组合已经建造的内部反应堆进行，并将利用收费制造。原型扩大规模的数据将与I-Corps访谈产生的数据结合使用，以便深入了解拟议工艺的商业可行性和进一步扩大规模的建议。

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.