Milk to milk bottles: Sustainable polymer grade lactic acid from residual dairy lactose

社会正在向工业和政府施加压力，要求减少，回收和再利用废物，并要求新的和现有的技术是环境，可持续和生物来源的。 该项目的目标是将乳糖转化为乳酸，乳酸将作为生物聚合物（聚乳酸）的原料：牛奶到奶瓶。在加拿大，乳制品行业的收入接近150亿美元，但它产生了乳糖水（0.05 g/g）的废水流，以及蛋白质，脂质和矿物质。 仅魁北克每年就生产75000吨脱脂牛奶固体和渗透物（废物），这些固体和渗透物要么被处理掉，要么被出口。 在未来4年内，国际条约将限制将这种废物运往国外。 出口/处理乳固体（65%乳糖）将产生接近1 $/kg的成本，这是非常昂贵的。 将这一流程转化为增值产品将有助于处于压力下的乳制品行业的经济健康。 高乳糖负载使其成为生产燃料、特种化学品和单体的有吸引力的生物原料。 生物燃料（甲烷、发酵乙醇）和合成气是可选的，但经济激励低，资本和运营成本太高，没有政府的财政支持。 该项目不是将乳糖分解为简单的分子，而是寻求尽可能多地保持化合物的功能性，并将以乳酸为目标。 酸催化剂水解和羟基化乳糖（和其他糖）。该项目将探索几种催化剂和转盘反应器技术，以生产浓缩流乳酸，这是食品，化妆品，化学品和制药行业的新兴平台化学构件。例子包括丙烯酸（2300美元/吨）和散装生物化学品。预计乳酸市场每年将增长11%以上，预计到2025年销售额将达到130亿美元。乳酸的价格从1700美元/吨开始，生物聚合物聚乳酸的售价超过3000美元/吨。 虽然乳糖发酵成乳酸已经在商业上进行了实践，但生产率低，资本投资高。 我们预计通过应用旋转圆盘反应器将增加反应速率并从而减少资本，从而实现数量级的节省（关闭经济性）。这种非线性反应需要高的传热和传质速率来接触乳糖和催化剂。 在传统的流化床、固定床、淤浆和滴流床反应器中，流体和催化剂之间的传质基本上取决于速度，该速度大约为lm/s -比旋转盘可能的速度低几个数量级。在加拿大化学和能源工业中实践的其它气-液、液-液和气-液-液系统是其它可能的应用。

Society is pressuring industry and government to reduce, recycle, and reuse waste and are demanding that new and existing technologies are environmental, sustainable, and biosourced. The objective of this project is to convert lactose to lactic acid that will serve as a feedstock for a biopolymer (polylactic acid): milk to milk bottles. Revenues from the dairy industry approached 15 billion$ in Canada but it it produces a waste stream of lactose water (0.05 g/g) in water together protein, lipids, and minerals. Quebec alone produces 75000 tonnes of non-fat milk solids and permeates (waste) per year that is either disposed of or exported. In the next 4 years, international treaties will restrict shipments of this waste outside national borders. To export/dispose of the milk solids (65 % lactose) will incur a cost approaching 1 $/kg, which is prohibitively expensive. Converting this stream to a value-added product will contribute to the economic health of the dairy industry that is under pressure. The high lactose loading makes it an attractive bio-feedstock to produce fuels, specialty chemicals, and monomers. Biofuels (methane, ethanol via fermentation) and syngas are options but the economic incentive is low and the capital and operating costs are too high without financial support from government. Rather than breaking down lactose to simple molecules, this projects seeks to maintain as much of the functionality of the compound as possible and will target lactic acid. Acid catalysts hydrolyze and hydroxylate lactose (and other sugars). This project will explore several catalysts and spinning disk reactor technology to produce concentrated stream lactic acid, which is an emerging platform chemical building-block in the food, cosmetics, chemicals, and pharmaceutical industries. Examples include acrylic acid (2300 $/t) and bulk biochemicals. The market of lactic acid is forecast to increase annually by over 11 % and is expected to reach $13 billion in sales by 2025. The price of lactic acid starts at 1700 $/t and the biopolymer polylactic acid sells for more than 3000 $/t. Although fermentation of lactose to lactic acid is already practiced commercially, productivity is low and capital investment is high. We anticipate order of magnitude savings (shut down economics) by applying a spinning disk reactor that will increase reaction rates and thereby reduce capital. This recalcitrant reaction requires high heat and mass transfer rates to contact the lactose and catalyst. Mass transfer between fluid and catalyst in the conventional fluidized bed, fixed beds, slurries, and trickle bed reactors depend essentially on the velocity, which is on the order of 1 m/s - several orders of magnitude lower than what is possible with the spinning disks. Other gas-liquid, liquid-liquid, and gas-liquid-liquid systems, practiced in the Canadian chemical and energy industries, are other possible applications.