Biochemical and physiochemical processes for resource valorization

由于能源部门的不确定性和不一致的环境政策，生物质衍生燃料和化学品的前景是一个不断变化的目标。从废油或专用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，通过厌氧消化产生的甲烷和氢重新引起了人们的兴趣。然而，前景似乎涉及更多样化的产品组合和灵活的转换过程，能够处理不同的原料。目前生物质衍生散装化学品的主要用途是作为能源载体，主要用于汽车部门。电动汽车和自动驾驶汽车的出现，加上城市化，可能会减少这种需求。然而，航空和航运业仍然需要高密度的能源载体，日益增长的环境问题导致对包装部门使用的材料进行重新评估。因此，生物质仍然是广泛材料的一个巨大和有吸引力的来源，加拿大在获得广泛的生物质资源方面处于有利地位，不仅因为它们丰富，而且还因为高度发达的农业和林业部门。大规模生物质转化技术可能无法像石化精炼和转化技术那样实现。由于原料运输（玉米秸秆没有管道运输）、可用性和同质性的限制，石油化工行业的规模经济不能简单地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大量专门知识和现有未充分利用的资产和基础设施。感兴趣的产品是化学构建块（C4或更大），可以进一步转化和/或聚合，如琥珀酸丙二醇或丁醇。实现生物炼制的竞争力需要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。提出的研究有三个主要目标：1。深共熔溶剂预处理陆生和水生生物质的研究进展合成生物学与合成联合体：微生物混合培养过程的发展作为合理菌株发展的基础新型高度集成发酵工艺的发展

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