SEMINAR

Increasing climate challenges and increased population has pushed to solutions away from fossil resources and instead to renewable resources. Biomass is a renewable resource and can be used to substitute products from petrochemical processes. For many years biomass was seen as a potential resource for heat and electricity production. However, since, renewable energy from sun and wind have become relatively cheap biomass should be reserved to higher value products than energy production. Conversion of biomass from wastes and agricultural residues such as manures, straw etc. to biogas can be a path to move through, to higher products. The biogas process is a scavenger removing a broad spectrum of organic compounds, from carbohydrates to proteins to fats and organic acids. Subsequently, biogas can be converted to other useful products, such as single cell proteins, biosuccinic acid, higher biofuels etc. Besides utilization of the organic matter, nutrients can be regained from the biogas plants effluents. In this respect biotechnology plays a significant role. In biotechnological processes microorganisms, or their enzymes are used as catalysts to convert components of biomass to products. During their metabolism microorganisms gain energy for their growth and maintenance, and produce side products which we can use. Already in the 19^th century, there was large scale production of goods based on biomass. Examples hereby were pulp and paper production from wood, nitration of cellulose from guncotton and viscose silk, production of lactic acid acetic acid, citric acid and alcohol, are some of the early industrial productions. Nowadays many of these compounds are produced from fossil fuels, which has put a break in the progress of this broad application of biotechnology. Biotechnology has been developed in production of more specialized high value components, as pharmaceuticals, enzymes, etc.

In the concept, organic biomass in wastes is converted to an number of products, with prioritization of the high value products (low volume) and secondary to bulk production of energy and fuels (high volumes)

In this presenation I will show potential applications from biogas to biomethane which can be applied as vehicle fuel or supplied to the natural gas grid. Methane can also be used as substrate for cultivation of methanotrophic bacterial with high protein content (up to 70% of DW) with good aminoacids composition. This proteinous biomass can with advantage be provided as animal feed. Additional products can be obtained from the intermediates of the AD process, such as PHAs or specific volatile fatty acids (eg. which at a second stage can be converted to useful alchols for produciotn of biofuels), lactic acids which is a precursor for lactides. Results of several of these alternative to heat and electricity will be presented. Challenges and opportunities will be discussed.