Innovative Chemoenzymatic Integrated Processes

Informations projet

INCITE

N° de convention de subvention: 870023

DOI

10.3030/870023

Projet clôturé

Date de signature de la CE 22 Août 2019

Date de début 1 Septembre 2019

Date de fin 31 Decembre 2023

Financé au titre de

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Advanced manufacturing and processing

Coût total

€ 17 405 808,68

Contribution de l’UE

€ 13 223 279,95

Coordonné par

OLEON NV
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - INCITE (Innovative Chemoenzymatic Integrated Processes)

Période du rapport: 2022-09-01 au 2023-12-31

Résumé du contexte et des objectifs généraux du projet

According to the European Environmental Agency (EEA), the EU chemical industry, including pharmaceuticals, emitted a total of 128.2 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2015, thus having a considerable impact on the environment. Due to the increasing concern on climate change and environmental issues, the focus of manufacturing industries has been gradually shifting towards the development of alternative greener, safer and sustainable processes. Chemo-enzymatic conversion therefore presents immense opportunities for developing sustainable processes. Enzymatic processes are particularly interesting to produce chiral molecules because of their high regio- and enantio-selectivity, which greatly simplifies downstream processing compared to traditional chemical synthesis. Additionally, their compatibility with ambient pressures and temperatures conditions is on the plus side for reducing the environmental footprint of the produced molecules.

In that context, the INCITE project aimed to demonstrate novel integrated upstream and downstream processing paths involving flow chemistry and membrane technology in chemo-enzymatic processes. The modularity and flexibility of the developed processes was showcased through two demonstration cases in real industrial settings and used hydrolases for the sustainable, safe and energy-efficient production of commodity and fine chiral chemicals. The first demonstration case involved esterase-catalyzed production of a chiral molecule used as starting material for applications in crop protection and public health, whereas the second demonstration case related to solvent-free synthesis of oleochemical esters using lipase enzymes. Compared to traditional chemical synthesis processes, these chemo-enzymatic processes have clear advantages of greater efficiency, higher product quality and smaller environmental footprint. Their development to TRL7 is aimed at opening up the way to their industrialization and thus at leading to major positive economic and environmental impacts.

Travail effectué depuis le début du projet jusqu’à la fin de la période considérée dans le rapport et principaux résultats atteints jusqu’à présent

The third reporting period of the INCITE project has seen the completion of the engineering phase and the erection, commissioning and start-up activities of the two demo plants. These developments were supported by a set of transversal activities to extract critical transversal knowledge, quantify technico-economic, social and environmental gains and raise awareness of the project activities and more widely of enzymatic technologies.

In more details, process innovation activities in the oleochemical track have led to concluding the demonstration at laboratory scale of a solvent free enzymatic synthesis of a broad range of esters showcasing the extension and replication of the INCITE technology.

Design and engineering studies have been completed for both tracks, orders of subunits and main demo equipments have been placed and received on their respective assembly sites. The construction of the demo plants has then been completed. Commissioning and start-up of all process units have been completed and the production of targeted lead products has been achieved according to specifications. On the agrochemical track, operation of all units in continuous mode is scheduled in 2024; on the oleochemical track, technical adjustments and protocol adaptations for the operability of enzymatic operation at industrial scale have been performed and led to the production of isopropyl palmitate.

In parallel, transversal activities have taken place to support the INCITE project development and maximise impact. An environmental life assessment was performed for both tracks, identifying hotpots in the chemo-enzymatic process, together with a social life cycle assessment and recommendations for improvements and finally the main economic indicators for both tracks. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out, defining the critical values of parameters that could negatively affect the profitability of plant operations.

Activities towards the identification of horizontal knowledge resulted in a set of solutions and lessons learned from both tracks together with a detailed overview of exchange and generation of information between project partners. This material has also been the focus of vertical training activities that have been deployed through the creation and opening to the public of 10 training modules, bearing on technologies developed in INCITE. The opening of these training modules has been accompanied by the broadcast of a first series of 11 webinars, now available to the public as knowledge clips on a dedicated youtube channel together with videos relating to background and project results. Overall, almost 2300 students and industry professionals were trained throughout the project.

The INCITE project was also concluded by a project workshop at the occasion of IFIB 2023 in Firenze (Italy).

Progrès au-delà de l’état des connaissances et impact potentiel prévu (y compris l’impact socio-économique et les conséquences sociétales plus larges du projet jusqu’à présent)

The demonstration of enzymatic resolution techniques to produce the key intermediates led to milder reaction conditions compared to the chemical route and the reduced the use of chemical reagents. The production of a first batch of enzyme has been achieved and used to perform a first agrochemical demo plant run; generated products showed expected characteristics and efficacy level. Continuous flow technology allows to reduce reactor volume from up to 4m3 in batch (and 150 batches) to 1L to produce the same quantity of intermediate per year.

A cost-effective enzymatic esterification process was developed under solvent free conditions using pervaporation technology at demo scale. The biocatalytic production of esters under mild and solvent free conditions led to better product quality, higher safety (lower pressure) and easier downstream processing compared to traditional chemical process and most importantly a broader product applicability compared to the current state-of-the-art. The quality and productivity objectives are achieved: an AV of 0.9 (<2) is achieved and a 15.5% productivity increase is reached compared to the reference process.

For the oleochemical process, the climate change impact of utilities (in kg CO2eq) was reduced by 52% in comparison with reference chemical processes; that of generated waste by 31%; overall from cradle to gate the climate change impact is reduced by 13%. Then, energy efficiency gains represent 61% for heat and 11% for electricity. The consumption of excess alcohol as raw material was reduced by 30%.

For the agrochemical process, comparison with a chemical process in terms of utility consumption was not achievable due to the limited data availability on the chemical process developed by competitors; nevertheless, the LCA allowed to indicate the major contributor to climate change impact as being utilities (65%) making the transition to green electricity an opportunity to significantly decrease this impact; climate change impact reduction could be estimated to 12% due to lower chemical consumption. Moreover, a decrease in energy demand of about 10% was calculated.

Knowledge gained by the consortium partners has been disseminated among the academic and non-academic target groups, with an expected impact on the EU competitiveness, improvement of skills within the European bioeconomy. 10 learning modules have been built up and open to the public with more than 2300 individuals trained so far and a series of 11 webinars involving INCITE project partners have taken place and have been edited into knowledge clips now publicly available.

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