Generating Customer Value with Renewable … Guske.pdf · Fermentation scaled from 13kL to ......
Transcript of Generating Customer Value with Renewable … Guske.pdf · Fermentation scaled from 13kL to ......
Generating Customer Value with
Renewable Chemicals:
The Case for Fermentation
CollaborationChristopher J. Guske, Ph.D.
D2 Biotech Consulting, LLC
BIOWC17
The Next New Adventure…
Christopher J. Guske, Ph.D.D2 Biotech Consulting, LLC
Former Director, BioVentures and
Support Services, Tate & Lyle
Nearly 30 yrs of Biotech experience
(CP Kelco, NutraSweet, Tate &
Lyle)
Fermentation subject-matter
expert
Downstream conversant
Process R&D expertise
Dennis AdkessonIndependent Consultant Associate
Research Fellow, Tate & Lyle, and
VP, Engineering, DTL
Over 50 yrs corn wet mill
experience (Tate & Lyle)
Over 20 yrs of Biotech experience
Downstream subject-matter expert
Fermentation conversant
Engineering expertise
Key Industry Milestones Interfaced with/assessed ~100 biotech opportunities/companies.
1,3-propanediol (PDO; DuPont Tate & Lyle BioProducts): Process development (multiple strain generations, scale-down experiments, media optimization, etc.), pilot plant scale up (fermentation and downstream), plant design, and Loudon, TN, plant startup support. Fermentation scaled from 13kL to 600kL, hitting 95% of pilot performance at startup and exceeding thereafter. Achievement widely recognized as the Gold Standard in Industrial Biotechnology; received the 2007 American Chemical Association’s Heroes of Chemistry Award.
1,4-butanediol (BDO; Genomatica): Produced 5Mlb of BDO at 600kL scale (DTL BioProductsPDO facility) after 14 months of lab and pilot plant work, including several strain generations and upstream and downstream process optimization; process was recipient of 42nd Kirkpatrick Chemical Engineering Achievement Award.
Farnesene (Amyris): Contract manufacturing in Decatur, IL; process optimization reduced production costs 2-3x; process received a 2014 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.
Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA; DaniMer Scientific): Technical demonstration and scale up of strains.
Astaxanthin (Igene JV): Small-scale lab and on-site plant support resulted in a 650% titer and productivity increase, resolving issues of scale-up in a converted citric acid plant.
D2 Biotech Consulting, LLC/Adkesson Experience
Process conceptualization and economic evaluation for both operating and capital costs.
Small-scale development (10L) through large scale (600 m3) production fermentation experience, including mechanically agitated and bubble column bioreactors and diverse operating rheologies (low to high viscosity, Newtonian and Non-Newtonian).
Process development, technical transfer, troubleshooting, process analysis, experimental design and applied statistics, tracking and optimization, cost reduction, downstream recovery, bioreactor design, plant startups, strain evaluation, media development and optimization, and scale up/scale down experience.
Experience with diverse products, processes, and organisms.
Broad knowledge of downstream unit operations.
New product development at pilot scale.
Project management for both R&D and plant capital projects (≤$100MM)
Broad knowledge of corn wet milling industry
Green Chemistries Dominated by Fermentation
Microbes are amazing entities:
Small, self-replicating, self-healing, chemical factories
Simultaneous, complex chemistries under mild operating conditions
Can be easily retooled
Diversity of products from the same hardware footprint
Low carbon footprint relative to petrochemical routes
Potential exceptions:
Inorganic catalysis to perform backbone modifications (e.g., Rennovia)
Reactions requiring extreme temperatures or pressures, or toxic chemicals
Post-fermentation chemical modifications
Enzymatic conversions
Fermentation Processes are Highly Diverse Diversity of organisms:
Diversity of operating conditions:
Key points:
Fermentation is part art and part science
A lot of things need to go right to have a good outcome. All it takes is for one thing to go wrong and all the things done right get flushed down the drain.
E. coli S. cerevisae Phaffia Aspergillus
PPFMs Pichia Yarrowia Cyanobacteria
Actinomycetes Algae Methanotrophs CB1
pH Temperature Dissolved oxygen Media comp.
Batch Fed-batch Continuous Asepsis
Agitation Aeration Sterilization Contamination
Fermentation Processes are Highly Diverse
Diversity of recovery/purification processes:
What is the strategy?
What technologies are required?
Filtration IX Carbon Centrifugation
Evaporation Crystallization Distillation Chromatography
Solvent extraction Electrodialysis
Intracellular Extracellular Gas Liquid
Solid Background
matrix
Coproducts/
contaminants
Purity
Fermentation Processes are Highly Diverse
Diversity of Feedstocks:
Feedstock factors to consider:
Geography: sourcing, transportation, co-location, etc.
Price volatility
Purity:
Impact on downstream?
Cheap/unrefined: Are you taking out someone else’s trash?
Cost-yield relationship
Glucose Fructose Sucrose C5/C6
Starch Glycerol Vegetable oils Molasses
CSL Organic acids Alcohols Industrial gases
Product vs. Process Customer needs drive green chemistry products:
“Greener”
“Smaller carbon footprint”
“Take the (inefficient) animal out of the process”
“Better for the environment/environmentally friendly/better
specificity”
“Petrochemical replacement”
Green products are identified…then the question is how to
produce them in an economically and commercially viable
way?
“If scale up was easy, everyone would be doing it.”
Fermentation Process Development
It is very rare that any one company can do it all:
Nothing is “textbook.”
Nothing is as easy as you think it is.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
There will be “snakes in the grass.”
The key: Know your strengths and weaknesses and
collaborate with those who know
Who has the missing expertise?
Where can speed to market be gained?
Who has the hardware/capital to implement?
Who has an established track record of success?
Successful Collaborations Genencor, DuPont and Tate & Lyle: 1,3-propanediol
Genencor/DuPont strain collaboration
Fermentation “beauty contest”
100 Years of Corn Wet Milling: experience processing and separating biological
materials at large, economic scale
Plant construction experience
Feedstock backwards integration and co-location
Successful Collaborations Genencor, DuPont and Tate & Lyle: 1,3-propanediol (cont.)
A fully integrated development process
Successful piloting
Successful commercial launch
Successful Collaborations Genomatica and Tate & Lyle: 1,4-butanediol
14 month piloting: process very similar to 1,3-propanediol
E. coli
Similar unit operations
5 million pounds produced in one month at DTL BioProducts commercial
facility
Successful Collaborations Igene and Tate & Lyle: Astaxanthin
Igene had previously been tolling at large scale with another company
Tate & Lyle tech transferred/adapted the process to its UK-based citric
plant
Scale up did not work as planned
On-site parallel lab fermentors identified and resolved issues
Final plant performance exceeded previous lab fermentor performance
Future Successful Collaborations?
Industry has become highly specialized: no one “does it
all,” per se
Thank you for your attention!
Christopher J. Guske, Ph.D.
D2 Biotech Consulting, LLC
(217) 464-0898