Osagie A. Osadolor

Innovative pretreatment strategies for biogas production

Biogas or biomethane is traditionally produced via anaerobic digestion, or recently by thermochemical or a combination of thermochemical and biological processes via syngas (CO and H2) fermentation. However, many of the feedstocks have recalcitrant structure and are difficult to digest (e.g., lignocelluloses or keratins), or they have toxic compounds (such as fruit flavors or high ammonia content), or not digestible at all (e.g., plastics). To overcome these challenges, innovative strategies for enhanced and economically favorable biogas production were proposed in this review. The strategies considered are commonly known physical pretreatment, rapid decompression, autohydrolysis, acid- or alkali pretreatments, solvents (e.g. for lignin or cellulose) pretreatments or leaching, supercritical, oxidative or biological pretreatments, as well as combined gasification and fermentation, integrated biogas production and pretreatment, innovative biogas digester design, co-digestion, and bio-augmentation.

Cost effective dry anaerobic digestion in textile bioreactors: Experimental and economic evaluation

The aim of this work was to study dry anaerobic digestion (dry-AD) of manure bedded with straw using textile-based bioreactor in repeated batches. The 90-L reactor filled with the feedstocks (22-30% total solid) and inoculum without any further treatment, while the biogas produced were collected and analyzed. The digestate residue was also analyzed to check its suitability as bio-fertilizer. Methane yield after acclimatization increased from 183 to 290NmlCH4/gVS, degradation time decreased from 136 to 92days and the digestate composition point to suitable bio-fertilizer. The results then used to carry out economical evaluation, which shows dry-AD in textile bioreactors is a profitable method of handling the waste with maximum payback period of 5years, net present value from

Effect of media rheology and bioreactor hydrodynamics on filamentous fungi fermentation of lignocellulosic and starch-based substrates under pseudoplastic flow conditions

7,000 to

Textile bioreactor a possible solution to reducing ethanol fermentation cost

9,800,000 (small to large bioreactors) with internal rate of return from 56.6 to 19.3%.

Introducing Textiles as Material of Construction of Ethanol Bioreactors

The aim of this work was to study how media rheology and bioreactor hydrodynamics would influence fermentation of lignocellulosic and starch-based substrates under pseudoplastic flow conditions. This was investigated using hydrolyzed wheat straw, wheat-based thin stillage and filamentous fungi as inoculum in bubble column, airlift and horizontal hybrid tubular/bubble column (textile bioreactor) bioreactors. The rheological models showed that the consistency index was dependent on biomass growth (R2 0.99) while the flow behavior index depended on biomass growth and suspended solid (R2 0.99). Oxygen transfer rate above 0.356 mmol-O2/L/h was needed for growing fungi with a cube-root growth rate constant of 0.03 g1/3/L1/3/h. At 1.4 VVM aeration the textile bioreactor performed better than others with minimal foaming, yields of 0.22 ± 0.01 g/g and 0.47 ± 0.01 g/g for ethanol and biomass, substrate consumption rate of 0.38 g/L/h. Operating the bioreactors with air-flowrate to cross-sectional area ratio of 8.75 × 10-3 (m3/s/m2) or more led to sustained foaming.

Empirical and experimental determination of the kinetics of pellet growth in filamentous fungi: A case study using Neurospora intermedia

There is growing concern on bioethanol application as a transportation fuel because of the current low price of crude oil. To reduce the ethanol fermentation cost, how ethanol bioreactors can be de ...A biotheraputic product requires many bioprocess steps to produce, recover and purify. We have identified interactions among these steps. The optimisation of the operation parameters are often determined sequentially from upstream to downstream and individually after the selection of appropriate unit operation steps. Such a linear approach often needs many reworking when difficulties appear in any of the downstream steps due to the interactions among the steps. An integrated approach for whole bioprocess design would recognise such interactions and enable new experimental design methods to take these interactions into consideration. Such an integrated approach has the potential to increase the efficiency of the whole process, and reduce the time and the cost of the process development phase. In this presentation several process interactions in a typical whole bioprocess will be identified and an integrated whole bioprocess design approach and its new challenges will be introduced. As the complexity in the design of a whole bioprocess increases the need for taking a holistic approach is manifest. These new challenges will be presented through a series of case studies which demonstrate that, by taking the advantage of high throughput experimentation and ultra scale down technology, new experimental design methods and data visualisation methods, the process design can be optimised. Our results showed that the experimentation effort needed for bioprocess development can be significantly reduced. In addition, the integrated approach helps us to understand the bioprocess characteristics better and enable the creation of novel solutions. Future perspectives on an integrated approach for the faster creation of biomanufacturing processes at lower cost will also be highlighted. Biography Dr. Yuhong Zhou obtained a PhD in Control Engineering, Imperial College and has established expertise in biochemical engineering and bioprocess design research over more than 20 years. Her research goals include developing methods for faster creation of biomanufacturing processes at lower cost. Her research interests are bioprocess modelling, development of bioprocess knowledge bases, metabolic network modelling, bioprocess monitoring and control, and rapid whole bioprocess design achieved by combining ultra scale down experimentation and bioprocess modelling.