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Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production
BACKGROUND: Lignocellulosic biomass is seen as an abundant renewable source of liquid fuels and chemicals that are currently derived from petroleum. When lignocellulosic biomass is used for ethanol production, the resulting liquid residue (stillage) contains large amounts of organic material that co...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6052542/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30034526 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-018-1193-x |
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author | Scarborough, Matthew J. Lynch, Griffin Dickson, Mitch McGee, Mick Donohue, Timothy J. Noguera, Daniel R. |
author_facet | Scarborough, Matthew J. Lynch, Griffin Dickson, Mitch McGee, Mick Donohue, Timothy J. Noguera, Daniel R. |
author_sort | Scarborough, Matthew J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Lignocellulosic biomass is seen as an abundant renewable source of liquid fuels and chemicals that are currently derived from petroleum. When lignocellulosic biomass is used for ethanol production, the resulting liquid residue (stillage) contains large amounts of organic material that could be further transformed into recoverable bioproducts, thus enhancing the economics of the biorefinery. RESULTS: Here we test the hypothesis that a bacterial community could transform the organics in stillage into valuable bioproducts. We demonstrate the ability of this microbiome to convert stillage organics into medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), identify the predominant community members, and perform a technoeconomic analysis of recovering MCFAs as co-products of ethanol production. Steady-state operation of a stillage-fed bioreactor showed that 18% of the organic matter in stillage was converted to MCFAs. Xylose and complex carbohydrates were the primary substrates transformed. During the MCFA production period, the five major genera represented more than 95% of the community, including Lactobacillus, Roseburia, Atopobium, Olsenella, and Pseudoramibacter. To assess the potential benefits of producing MCFAs from stillage, we modeled the economics of ethanol and MCFA co-production, at MCFA productivities observed during reactor operation. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis predicts that production of MCFAs, ethanol, and electricity could reduce the minimum ethanol selling price from $2.15 to $1.76 gal(−1) ($2.68 gal(−1) gasoline equivalents) when compared to a lignocellulosic biorefinery that produces only ethanol and electricity. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-018-1193-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6052542 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-60525422018-07-20 Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production Scarborough, Matthew J. Lynch, Griffin Dickson, Mitch McGee, Mick Donohue, Timothy J. Noguera, Daniel R. Biotechnol Biofuels Research BACKGROUND: Lignocellulosic biomass is seen as an abundant renewable source of liquid fuels and chemicals that are currently derived from petroleum. When lignocellulosic biomass is used for ethanol production, the resulting liquid residue (stillage) contains large amounts of organic material that could be further transformed into recoverable bioproducts, thus enhancing the economics of the biorefinery. RESULTS: Here we test the hypothesis that a bacterial community could transform the organics in stillage into valuable bioproducts. We demonstrate the ability of this microbiome to convert stillage organics into medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), identify the predominant community members, and perform a technoeconomic analysis of recovering MCFAs as co-products of ethanol production. Steady-state operation of a stillage-fed bioreactor showed that 18% of the organic matter in stillage was converted to MCFAs. Xylose and complex carbohydrates were the primary substrates transformed. During the MCFA production period, the five major genera represented more than 95% of the community, including Lactobacillus, Roseburia, Atopobium, Olsenella, and Pseudoramibacter. To assess the potential benefits of producing MCFAs from stillage, we modeled the economics of ethanol and MCFA co-production, at MCFA productivities observed during reactor operation. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis predicts that production of MCFAs, ethanol, and electricity could reduce the minimum ethanol selling price from $2.15 to $1.76 gal(−1) ($2.68 gal(−1) gasoline equivalents) when compared to a lignocellulosic biorefinery that produces only ethanol and electricity. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13068-018-1193-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2018-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6052542/ /pubmed/30034526 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-018-1193-x Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Scarborough, Matthew J. Lynch, Griffin Dickson, Mitch McGee, Mick Donohue, Timothy J. Noguera, Daniel R. Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production |
title | Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production |
title_full | Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production |
title_fullStr | Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production |
title_full_unstemmed | Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production |
title_short | Increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production |
title_sort | increasing the economic value of lignocellulosic stillage through medium-chain fatty acid production |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6052542/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30034526 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13068-018-1193-x |
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