Intensified Integrated Bio-Refinery

全球最重要和最紧迫的问题是建立可持续的能源和化学品原料技术，以取代相应的基于化石燃料的技术，从而大幅减少大气中的温室气体。只有当我们以废物或能源作物的形式利用生物质时，这项艰巨的任务才有可能实现，因为未利用的生物质会降解并仍会产生温室气体。就可得性而言，全球生产的生物质的能量当量约为全球总能源需求的8倍。然而，与化石燃料不同，生物质广泛分布在人口中心附近。因此，生物质物流听起来可能是不利的，因为在中央（现有）大型设施收集生物质进行转化并不经济。由于生物质本身的产品（电力或运输燃料）必须被分配，如果我们解决“规模经济”问题，生物质物流实际上是一个优势；也就是说，使用容量很大的工厂进行加工，成本效益更高。通过采用两个新技术概念：过程集成和过程强化，可以弥补这一缺陷。整合将为我们提供能源和资源效率，而集约化将消除“规模经济”，因为集约化降低了资本和运营成本（由于工厂规模的大幅缩小）、安全性、响应能力和社会可接受性。与炼油厂的概念类似，生物质可以转化为高价值（治疗）化学品，剩余的残余生物质通过发酵过程转化为生物乙醇，残渣经气化得到合成气。生物乙醇是一种用途广泛的化学品，可以用作液体运输燃料，作为化学储氢手段或作为塑料或药物等高级化学品的化学中间体。强化元素将出现在每个层面，包括提取过程。通过发酵生产生物乙醇是一种众所周知的途径，但它将通过使用基因增强细菌来加强，并将结果与野生型进行比较。基因强化菌将被安置在特殊的反应器中，生理压力将被控制在微观尺度上，从而进一步提高发酵生产率。因此，这种技术可以应用于其他生物转化，如药物。生物质废物，如城市固体废物、污水污泥或农业残留物，也可以通过气化直接转化为生物乙醇，气化产生的合成气必须清洗，其成分应加以控制，必要时应将气体分离成其成分（氢、一氧化碳、甲烷、二氧化碳），以便它们可以用作化学成分，如氨、乙醇和甲醇等大分子。或者，合成气可以用作内燃机或燃料电池的燃料来发电。这些操作应在高温下进行，以提高效率。合成气发电/高级化学品转化也需要催化反应。然而，合成气本质上是一种“脏”燃料，必须清除焦油、有毒成分和颗粒物。我们将制备新型的“强化”高温催化剂，其中催化位点可以通过孔隙网络进入，就像在自然界一样，即肺和肾脏。生物乙醇不仅是一种很好的汽车燃料，它也是一种很好的氢储存方式，它可以转化为其他化学品，如商品塑料，即聚乙烯。将给出生物乙醇作为中间化学品的演示。

The most important and urgent global issue is the establishment of sustainable energy and chemicals feedstock technologies to replace the corresponding fossil fuel based technologies so as to achieve a drastic reduction of atmospheric green-house gases. This colossal task is only possible if we utilise biomass either in the form of waste or energy crops since unutilised biomass will degrade and still produce green-house gases. As regards availability, energy equivalence of biomass produced globally is some 8 times the total global energy need. However, unlike fossil fuels, biomass is widely distributed near the population centres. Hence, biomass logistics may sound to be disadvantageous since their collection for conversion at a central (existing) large scale facility will not be economical. Since the products from biomass themselves (electric power or transport fuel) will have to be distributed, biomass logistics is in fact an advantage, provided we address the problem of 'economies of scale'; that is, it is more cost effective to have processing using very large capacity plants. This drawback is remedied by adopting two new technology concepts: Process Integration and Process Intensification. Integration will provide us with energy and resource efficiency while Intensification will eliminate 'economies of scale' since intensification delivers reduced capital and operating costs (due to drastic reduction in plant size), safety, responsiveness and social acceptability. Similar to the concept of oil-refinery, biomass can be converted to high value (therapeutic) chemicals, the remaining residual biomass is converted to bioethanol through a fermentation process, the residue from which is gasified to obtain syngas. Bioethanol is a highly versatile chemical which can be used as liquid transport fuel, as means of chemical hydrogen storage or as a chemical intermediate for higher chemicals such as plastics or drugs. The intensification element will be present at every level, including the extraction process. Bioethanol production through fermentation is a well known route but it will be intensified by using genetically enhanced bacteria and compare the result with wild type. Genetically enhanced bacteria will be contained within special reactors and the physiological stresses will be controlled at microscopic scale which results in further enhancement of the fermentation productivity. Hence, such technology can be applied to other bioconversions such as drugs. Biomass waste such as municipal solid waste, sewage sludge or agriculture residues can also be converted directly to bioethanol via via gasification which produces syngas which must be cleaned and its composition should be controlled and where necessary gases should be separated into its components (hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, carbon dioxide) so that they could be used as chemical building blocks of larger molecules such as ammonia, ethanol and methanol. Alternatively, syngas can be used as a fuel for internal combustion engine or fuel cells to generate electricity. These operations should be carried out at high temperatures to enhance efficiency. Syngas-to-power/higher chemicals conversions also require catalytic reactions. However, syngas is essentially a 'dirty' fuel and must be cleaned from tars, toxic components and particulate matter. We will prepare novel 'intensified' high temperature catalysts where the catalytic sites are accessible through a network of pores, like it is in nature, i.e., lungs and kidneys. Bioethanol is not only a good fuel for cars, it is also a good storage of hydrogen and it can be converted to other chemicals such as commodity plastics, ie, polyethylene. The demonstration of bioethanol as an intermediate chemical will be given.