Newton Bhabha Industrial Waste: Valorising Waste from Sugar Cane Industries via Innovations in Pretreatment, Biotransformation and Intensification

甘蔗产业是印度第二大以农业为基础的产业，养活了大约6000万农民及其家庭。然而，甘蔗及相关行业每年产生超过1亿公吨的固体和液体废物(约80公吨甘蔗渣、约10公吨压榨泥、450亿升洗涤废液、甘蔗渣沥青和约25公吨甘蔗垃圾)。部分甘蔗渣通过在锅炉中燃烧来发电。糖业和相关工业产生的大量废物既是一个巨大的挑战，也是一个机遇。VWA项目旨在利用英国在将废弃生物质转化为能源和化学品方面的专业知识，提供技术解决方案，以解决印度糖业和相关行业产生的废物问题。英国两家领先的生物能源公司(Nova Pangaea Technologies和Green Fuels Research)正与英国三所大学(贝尔法斯特女王大学、克兰菲尔德大学和诺丁汉大学)合作，开发适当的解决方案，将五种主要废物(甘蔗渣、压榨泥浆、废洗涤、甘蔗渣髓和甘蔗垃圾)转化为运输燃料(生物压缩天然气和丁醇)和化学品(丁二酸和乳酸)。英国财团已经确定了相关的印度合作伙伴，其中包括一个顶级糖厂研发组织、Vasantdada糖业研究所(其成员有146家糖厂和74家酿酒厂)、两家大型糖厂(Dhampur和Lokmanga)、一家专注于前处理(Vivira)的初创企业以及三家印度研究所(印度理工学院孟买和德里以及印度石油学院)。VWA财团将解决木质纤维生物质(LCB)定价方面的关键挑战，即开发一种具有成本效益的前处理方法(空化、热和生物相结合)，以提高生物质的消化率，将处理后的生物质转化为可发酵糖(脱毒后)，以及将糖转化为产品。大多数过去和正在进行的努力侧重于从LCB中回收纤维素，然后将其转化为糖和其他附加值产品的前处理。这些方法存在与治疗前相关的高成本问题。在这个项目中，我们的目标是开发将上述五种废气转化为运输燃料(生物天然气和生物丁醇[BB])以及两种增值化学品(丁二酸[SA]和乳酸[LA])的技术并将其商业化。关键的创新在于混合的前处理方法：热法(由Nova开发)、水力空化(由Pi，Vivira开发)和厌氧消化(AD)。AD将首次用于选择性地将半纤维素转化为沼气，并将纤维素保留在沼气中，后者将转化为糖。从废渣中提取的木质素将从残渣中分离出来，并可能作为副产品出售以进行进一步的定价。从沼气中提取的糖将经过微生物发酵生产BB、SA和LA。将优化工艺条件和策略，强化和开发模块化工艺，从发酵液中获得所需纯度的BB、SA和LA。所提出的方法和有针对性的解决方案将实现最先进水平的阶段性变化。开发的解决方案将在可能的情况下在试点和现场规模上进行演示。这些演示和财团合作伙伴的行业联系将用于促进已开发技术的商业化。开发的解决方案将使印度甘蔗行业的生产率发生明显变化，因此将对印度农村地区广大人口的福祉产生重大有利影响。

The sugar cane industry is the second-largest agro-based industry in India and supports approximately 60 million farmers and their families. The sugarcane and associated industry however produces more than100 million tons (MT) of solid and liquid wastes every year (~80 MT of bagasse, ~10 MT of press mud, 45 billion litres of spent wash, bagasse pitch and ~25 MT of cane trash). Part of the bagasse is used to generate power by burning it in boilers. The huge quantities of wastes produced by sugar and associated industries pose a significant challenge as well as an opportunity. The vWa project is aimed at harnessing UK expertise on transforming waste biomass to energy and chemicals for providing technological solutions to address problem of waste generated by sugar and associated industries in India. Two leading bioenergy companies in UK (Nova Pangaea Technologies and Green Fuels Research) are collaborating with three UK universities (Queen's University Belfast, Cranfield University and Nottingham University) to develop appropriate solutions for transforming five major waste streams (bagasse, press mud, spent wash, bagasse pith and sugar cane trash) to transportation fuels (bio-CNG and butanol) and chemicals (succinic and lactic acid). The UK consortium has identified relevant Indian partners which include an apex R & D organisation of sugar mills, Vasantdada Sugar Institute (which has 146 sugar mills and 74 distilleries as their members), two large sugar mills (Dhampur and Lokmangal), a start-up focussed on pre-treatment (Vivira) along with three Indian research Institute (Indian Institute of Technology Bombay & Delhi and Indian Institute of Petroleum). The vWa consortium will address the key challenges in valorisation of a lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) namely development of a cost effective pre-treatment method (combination of cavitation, thermal and biological) to improve digestibility of biomass, transformation of treated biomass to fermentable sugar (after detoxification) and transformation of the sugars to products. Most of the past and ongoing efforts focus on pre-treatment for recovering cellulose from LCB and then converting it to sugars and other value added products. These approaches suffer from high costs associated to pre-treatment. In this project, we aim to develop and commercialise technologies for transforming five waste streams mentioned above to transportation fuels (bioCNG and biobutanol [BB]), and two value added chemicals (succinic acid [SA] and lactic acid [LA]). The key innovation lies in hybrid pre-treatment methods: thermal process (developed by Nova), hydrodynamic cavitation (developed by PI, Vivira) and anaerobic digestion (AD). The AD will be used for the first time to selectively convert hemi-cellulose to biogas and retain cellulose in the digestate which will be converted to sugars. Lignin from the digestate will be separated from the residue and may be sold as a by-product for further valorisation. The sugars obtained from digestate will be subjected to microbial fermentation to manufacture BB, SA and LA. The process conditions and strategies will be optimized and intensified & modular processes will be developed to obtain BB, SA and LA of desired purity from the fermentation broth. The proposed approach and aimed solutions will realise a step change in the state of the art. The developed solutions will be demonstrated on pilot and field scales wherever possible. These demonstrations and industry connect of the consortium partners will be used to facilitate commercialisation of developed technologies. The developed solutions will make tangible difference in productivity of sugar cane industries in India and will therefore have significant beneficial impact on wellbeing of large population in rural India.