S37: Fermentation scale-down: A view from industrial practice

Innovations in (molecular) biotechnology and chemistry for the conversion of biomass into bio-based products, now are rapidly advancing to bioprocess scale-up and implementation in industry. There, the manufacturing value chain connects biomass as novel feedstock, biomass pretreatment and hydrolysis, (bio)conversion of sugars into monomeric intermediates, and novel purification schemes to meet final product specifications. All need to be proven economic and robust in industry. In particular, the shift from sugars to biomass as feedstock presents the bioprocess technology field with a formidable additional challenge, and new solutions are required. Process modeling, high-throughput screening, scale-down simulation, process intensification and pilot/demo-scale campaigns are important for de-risking and faster implementation. On top of this, sustainability metrics such as less greenhouse gas emissions, energy input and waste need to be clearly linked to the process mass and energy balances.

A leading principle is to take the industrial fermentation as reference point, and from there scale-down to the labs where the optimization research is being done. For a proper scale-down, experimental data from the industrial reactor provide guidance to design and operation of scale-down simulators, but also computations to get sufficient high-resolution information. It is important to use as thoroughly as possible the scarce data from industrial fermentations to validate computational results.

In recent years, good progress in this area has been demonstrated as shown in this presentation via examples from DSM, applied to viable business cases for e.g. antibiotics, vitamins, lignocellulosic bio-ethanol, and bio-plastics.