NSERC-DFG SUSTAIN: Biological and electrochemical process design for biocatalytic CO2 conversion

NSERC-DFG SUSTAIN：生物催化二氧化碳转化的生物和电化学工艺设计

• 批准号: 534253964
• 负责人: Professor Dr.-Ing. Thomas Meurer
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Mechanische Verfahrenstechnik und Mechanik (MVM)
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/534253964?language=en
• 关键词: NSERC; DFG; SUSTAIN; Biological; electrochemical

Biocatalytic conversion processes represent a promising contribution to a sustainable circular economy due to mild operating conditions compared to existing processes, simple biocatalyst cultivation, and the possibility to reach a complete conversion of the feed gas without necessary expensive loop management. In opposite to traditional fermentation processes that are based on starch feedstock, synthesis gas fermentation uses gaseous C1-substrates and offers great flexibility regarding the feedstock. The fermentation reaction is catalyzed by a chemolithoautotrophic microorganism, and the final products of a future process chain could be high value chemicals like fuels, chemicals, lipids and proteins. Anaerobic acetogens are possible microorganisms used for gas fermentation, and they are well investigated and already successfully in use at industrial pilot scale and commercial plants for anaerobic syngas fermentation. Anaerobic acetogens are able to produce acetate or ethanol as intermediates through the fixation of CO2 via the so-called Wood-Ljungdahl pathway. This project deals with the development, the estimator and control design, and the optimization of a novel novel electro-bio hybrid process for the conversion of CO2 to high-value products. This will include the implementation of the concepts at a test-rig. For this, it aims to combine the expertise of the involved partners from KIT Karlsruhe, Germany and Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada. A major goal of this investigation is to increase the overall process efficiency. Important contributing factors are composition of the synthesis gas, gas flow rate, pH, cell density in the reactor and process pressure. Electrochemical processes are to be integrated to provide a hybrid solution to CO2 conversion in which the electrochemistry can be used to control feed composition. The SANDRA test-rig, which includes a continuously operated stirred tank reactor for the fermentation of the microorganism Clostridium ljungdahli, has been set up by the Institute of Catalysis Research and Technology of KIT will serve as experimental proof-of-concept. Establishment of a stationary state in this biological system is slow due to the long residence time of the liquid phase and possible adaptation processes of the microorganisms. The purely empirical optimization of reactor operation is therefore extremely time-consuming. Continuous control involving suitable estimator or soft-sensor concepts of reactor operation to achieve an optimal operating condition with respect to a meaningful objective such as total carbon fixation, would help to drastically reduce reactor operating times while providing valuable information about the system, which is desperately needed for a future knowledge-based scale-up of the new technology.

生物催化转化工艺代表了对可持续循环经济的有希望的贡献，这是由于与现有工艺相比温和的操作条件、简单的生物催化剂培养以及在没有必要的昂贵回路管理的情况下实现进料气体的完全转化的可能性。与基于淀粉原料的传统发酵工艺相反，合成气发酵使用气态C1-底物，并且对原料具有很大的不稳定性。发酵反应由化能无机自养微生物催化，未来工艺链的最终产品可能是高价值的化学品，如燃料、化学品、脂质和蛋白质。厌氧产乙酸菌是用于气体发酵的可能微生物，并且它们被充分研究并且已经成功地用于工业中试规模和商业工厂中用于厌氧合成气发酵。厌氧产乙酸菌能够通过所谓的Wood-Ljungdahl途径通过二氧化碳的分解产生乙酸或乙醇作为中间体。本项目涉及一种新型的将CO2转化为高价值产品的新型电-生物混合过程的开发、估计器和控制设计以及优化。这将包括在试验台上实施这些概念。为此，它的目标是联合收割机的专业知识，参与合作伙伴从KIT卡尔斯鲁厄，德国和皇后大学，安大略，加拿大。本研究的主要目标是提高整体工艺效率。重要的影响因素是合成气的组成、气体流速、pH、反应器中的细胞密度和工艺压力。电化学过程将被整合以提供混合解决方案到CO2转化，其中电化学可用于控制进料组成。KIT的催化研究和技术研究所建立了SANTHAL试验台，其中包括一个用于微生物Clostridium ljungdahli发酵的连续操作搅拌罐反应器，将作为实验概念验证。由于液相的长停留时间和微生物可能的适应过程，在该生物系统中建立稳定状态是缓慢的。因此，反应器操作的纯经验优化极其耗时。连续控制涉及反应堆运行的适当估计器或软传感器概念，以实现相对于有意义的目标（如总碳排放量）的最佳运行条件，将有助于大幅减少反应堆运行时间，同时提供有关系统的有价值信息，这是未来新技术基于知识的规模扩大所迫切需要的。