18-18: Whole-cell biocatalytic production of 2,5-furan dicarboxylic acid (FDCA)

FDCA (2,5-furandicarboxylic acid) is a highly promising biobased replacement for phtalates in resins and polymers. A lab-scale process for the biocatalytic production of FDCA from 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) has been developed based on a specific oxidase from the furan degrading bacterium Cupriavidus basilensis HMF14. Further improvement of the whole-cell biocatalyst as well as the fermentation procedure has resulted in considerably faster FDCA production, with less accumulation of by-products. Further details on strain improvement and fermentation development will be presented in the paper.

At present, the lab-scale FDCA production is being developed to an integrated process at pilot scale, and eventually a full-scale process is aimed for. As the availability of cheap HMF is key for economically feasible FDCA production, and competition with food production is to be prevented, the envisaged route to HMF production is via catalytic dehydration of lignocellulose-derived hexoses. The resulting raw HMF stream is expected to resemble a very toxic lignocellulose hydrolysate, which poses specific challenges to both the host strain and the downstream processing. As a host strain, Pseudomonas putida S12 has been selected which is tolerant to a wide variety of chemical stress factors. Suitable techniques for economic recovery of (ultra-)pure FDCA from raw-HMF fermentation broths are under investigation. The FDCA product from intensified lab- and pilot scale processes will be evaluated in application tests and used for polymer and resin product development, as part of a consorted effort to promote FDCA as a new and green polymer building block.