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Pioneering research across the board of biofuels
Author: Simon Lightfoot
Increasingly limited resources of fossil fuels and the continuing environmental controversies involved with the use of conventional fuel technologies mean the development of alternative fuels is more important than ever before. June’s issue of the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology sees three cutting-edge research papers explore the development of three essential biofuels.
Assessing the use of cutinase reversed micellar catalytic system for the production of biodiesel from triglycerides
Authors: Sara M. Badenes, Francisco Lemos and Joaquim M. S. Cabral
Biodiesel production by transesterification of vegetable oils is an established industrial process involving the use of inorganic base or acid catalysts. High conversions of triglycerides are achieved but the reaction process suffers several drawbacks, ranging from high energy consumption to the subsequent need for the alkaline waste water treatment.
The biotechnological route, where lipases have been used to catalyze the transesterification reaction, offers an advantageous alternative, operable at room temperature with a reusable biocatalyst. The research within this paper studies the use not only of methanol (the normally used alcohol in the production of biodiesel), but also ethanol and butanol.
The encouraging results concluded that reversed lipase micellar catalytic media is suitable to perform the transesterification reactions of triglycerides with butanol, ethanol or methanol as a system to produce biodiesel.
J Chem Technol Biotechnol, 2010; Early View
Optimisation of a fermentation process for butanol production by particle swarm optimisation (PSO)
Authors: Adriano Pinto Mariano, Caliane Bastos Borba Costa, Dejanira de Franceschi de Angelis, Francisco Maugeri Filho, Daniel Ibraim Pires Atala, Maria Regina Wolf Maciel and Rubens Maciel Filho
ABE fermentation, the standard fermentation for the production of butanol, is a process that has limited productivity. The ability to perform such a procedure in optimal conditions would greatly enhance the possibility of turning biobutanol into a viable alternative to petrol-based butanol.
This research focuses on three issues concerning particle swarm optimisation (PSO): the capability to solve these optimisation problems; the performance of three different algorithms; the applicability of a constraint handling method originally developed for genetic algorithms (GA).
The authors concluded that the design and operation of the flash fermentation process must be based on optimisation of productivity rather than substrate conversion. This results in a smaller fermentor and conditions capable of overcoming fluctuations in the quality of the agricultural raw material and changes in the kinetics of the microorganisms. The differences among the PSO algorithms had significant effects on the optimisation, the best results being obtained with the original equation of velocity with the inertia weight decreasing linearly with number of iterations. The solutions obtained obeyed constraints: it was demonstrated that the constraint handling method, originally developed for GA, can be successfully applied to PSO.
J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2010; Early View
Enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse for bioethanol production: determnining optimal enzyme loading using neural networks
Authors: Elmer Ccopa Rivera, Sarita Cândida Rabelo, Daniella dos Reis Garcia, Rubens Maciel Filho and Aline Carvalho da Costa
In the utilization of lignocellulosic biomass as a feedstock in bioethanol production processes, the efficient production of a fermentable hydrolyzate is essential. The identification of the optimal enzyme loading is paramount to maximize the amount of glucose produced from lignocellulosic materials while maintaining low costs.
Using the enzymatic hydrolysis of sugarcane bagasse as a case study, the authors built up an accurate model of the combined effects of cellulase and ß-glucosidase loads on glucose yield after enzymatic hydrolysis.
The dynamic model developed can be used not only for the prediction of glucose concentration profiles for different enzymatic loadings, but also to obtain the optimum enzyme loading that leads to high glucose yield. It can promote both a successful hydrolysis process control and a more effective employment of enzymes. The methodology developed can be easily applied to any combination of pretreatment/biomass employed in enzymatic hydrolysis.
J Chem Technol Biotechnol 2010; Early View
To read more articles from the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, please visit the journal home page.
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