Biochemical and physiochemical processes for resource valorization

由于能源部门的不确定性和环境政策的不一致，生物质衍生燃料和化学品的前景是一个不断变化的目标。从废油或专门种植的农作物中提取的谷物乙醇和生物柴油仍然是主要的商业产品，人们对通过厌氧消化获得的甲烷和氢气重新产生了兴趣。然而，前景似乎涉及更多样化的产品组合，灵活的转换过程能够处理不同的原料。 生物质衍生的散装化学品目前的主要用途是作为能源载体，主要用于汽车行业。电动汽车和自动驾驶汽车的出现，再加上城市化，可能会减少这一需求。然而，航空和航运行业仍将需要高密度的能源载体，日益增长的环境担忧导致对包装行业使用的材料进行重新评估。 因此，生物质仍然是一大批有吸引力的材料来源，加拿大处于有利地位，能够获得广泛的生物质资源，这不仅是因为其丰富，而且还因为其高度发达的农业和林业部门。 大规模生物质转化技术可能不会像石化精炼和转化技术那样实现。石化行业的规模经济不能仅仅由于原料运输(没有玉米秸秆管道)、可获得性和同质性造成的限制而转移到生物转化过程中。因此，生物质转化设施将是专门的中型工厂，类似于纸浆和造纸厂，加拿大在这一领域拥有丰富的专业知识和现有未得到充分利用的资产和基础设施。感兴趣的产品是可以进一步转化和或聚合的化学构建块(C4或更大)，如琥珀酸、丙二醇或丁醇。要实现生物精炼的竞争力，需要取得重大的科学和技术突破，拟议的研究将试图解决一些关键挑战。 拟议的研究有三个主要目标： 1.深共晶溶剂对陆生和水生生物物质的预处理研究进展 2.合成生物学VS合成联合体：开发微生物混合培养过程作为合理菌株开发的基础 3.开发高度集成的新型发酵工艺

The perspectives for biomass-derived fuels and chemicals are an ever-moving target due to uncertainties in the energy sector and inconsistent environmental policies. Grain-based ethanol and biodiesel derived from waste oils or purpose grown crops are still the predominant commercial products with a renewed interest in methane and hydrogen derived through anaerobic digestion. However, the outlook appears to involve a more diverse product portfolio and flexible conversion processes are able to handle diverse feedstocks. The current main usage for biomass derived bulk chemicals is as energy carriers, largely for the automotive sector. The onset of electric and autonomous vehicles in combination with urbanization might reduce this demand. However, high-density energy carriers will still be needed in the aviation and shipping industry and growing environmental concerns lead to a re-evaluation of the materials used in the packaging sector. Hence, biomass remains a large and attractive source for a broad range of materials and Canada is in the advantageous position of having access to extensive biomass resources not just due to their simple abundance, but also through a highly developed agricultural and forestry sector. Large scale biomass conversion technologies will likely not be realized the same as petrochemical refining and conversion technologies. The economy of scale found in the petrochemical industry cannot be transferred to bioconversion processes simply due to limitation caused by feedstock transportation (no pipelines for corn stover), availability, and homogeneity. Hence biomass conversion facilities will be specialized, medium scale plants, analogous to pulp and paper mills, an area where Canada has vast expertise and existing underutilized assets and infrastructure. Products of interest are chemical building blocks (C4 and larger) that can be further transformed and or polymerized such as succinic acid propanediol, or butanol. Significant scientific and technical breakthroughs are required to achieve competitiveness of biorefineries and the proposed research will attempt to address some of the key challenges. The proposed research has three key objectives: 1. Development of terrestrial and aquatic biomass pretreatment with deep eutectic solvents 2. Synthetic biology vs. synthetic consortia: Development of microbial mixed culture processes as a basis for rational strain development 3. Development of novel highly integrated fermentation processes