12-06: Separation and fermentation volatile phase of pyrolysis bio-oil to produce lipid by oleaginous yeast Cryptococcus curvatus

Pyrolysis is a fast way to liquefy lignocellulosic material to bio-oil with high temperature. However, bio-oil is hard to be used directly for containing hundreds type of chemicals with different molecular weight, boiling point and function groups. Therefore, separate and utilize these chemical is important to generate value-add products. Bio-oil could be separated to volatile and heavy phase by different boiling points by rotary evaporation. In volatile phase, acetate and acetol are two main easy-evaporated by-products and are more likely to condense in the secondary condenser in the industry scale reactor, as the highest concentration is around 16% in total bio-oil. Bio-oil becomes more stable and less corrosive by removing these acetate and acetol. Converting these acetate and acetol into lipid can enhance the economic viability of Biorefinery. The results in this paper prove that the acetate and acetol could be separated and fermented to produce lipid by Cryptococcus curvatus. Although acetate and acetol proved to be a good resource by yeast, pH is still the key issue to control the fermentation process as the consumption of acetate generates hydroxide ion . The phenols remained in the volatile phase for fermentation still showed high inhibition and should be removed. In this study, activate carbon was used for adsorption of phenolic and other toxic compounds before fermentation.