Sustainable excretable biofuels process design and optimisation
Lead Research Organisation:
Imperial College London
Department Name: Chemical Engineering
Abstract
Biofuels produced from algae constitute an outstanding alternative to replace conventional fossil fuels and diversify sustainable energy sources. Because solar energy and atmospheric carbon dioxide are the direct energy and carbon source for biofuel production, no additional carbon dioxide is released to the environment when burning these fuels. Therefore, algae based biofuel production processes are a match for circular economy and are characterised by industrial sustainability.
In order to facilitate the commercialisation of environmentally friendly biofuels, this proposal aims to determine the sustainable excretable biofuels production process routes for transportation energy supply. In particular, three excretable biofuels, biohydrogen (clean transport fuel), biobutanol (replacement of gasoline) and biohydrocarbon (alternative of diesel), will be selected due to their estimated huge global demand in near future. Throughout this project, advanced bioprocess simulation and optimisation methodologies for the economic and environmental assessment of excretable biofuels will be constructed to resolve this challenge. Moreover, the strategies developed in my proposed research can be applied not only to biofuel production, but also to other future bioprocesses.
In order to facilitate the commercialisation of environmentally friendly biofuels, this proposal aims to determine the sustainable excretable biofuels production process routes for transportation energy supply. In particular, three excretable biofuels, biohydrogen (clean transport fuel), biobutanol (replacement of gasoline) and biohydrocarbon (alternative of diesel), will be selected due to their estimated huge global demand in near future. Throughout this project, advanced bioprocess simulation and optimisation methodologies for the economic and environmental assessment of excretable biofuels will be constructed to resolve this challenge. Moreover, the strategies developed in my proposed research can be applied not only to biofuel production, but also to other future bioprocesses.
Planned Impact
The impact of this project can be categorised into three aspects, which are society, economy, and people.
Society: The development, industrialisation, and commercial use of sustainable biofuels as a replacement of traditional non-renewable energy sources has the potential to make substantial benefits to the public health and general social welfare.
As biofuels are synthesised through microalgae photosynthesis where solar energy and atmospheric carbon dioxide are the direct energy and carbon source, respectively, no additional carbon dioxide is realised to the environment when burning these fuels. Therefore, biofuels can significantly mitigate the greenhouse effects which have been demonstrated to severely threat public health and life quality (e.g. causing vascular diseases, infectious diseases, and heat-related deaths).
Furthermore, as the project aims to conduct a detailed environmental and economical assessment on sustainable excretable biofuels production, its research outcomes can provide clear directions on the development of environmental and energy policies which are major concerns of societal issues and governmental institutions.
Economy: The current project focuses on the commercialisation of renewable biofuels, which has great potential to affect the national energy supply market, in particular transportation energy. At this moment, it has been reported that the UK continues increasing the amount of imported oil and natural gas from the Middle East and Russia due to its ever-dwindling fossil fuel reserves. Therefore, by replacing imported fuels with biofuels, the UK will be benefited financially and its national energy market risk will be ameliorated.
In addition, due to the advantages of biofuels (e.g. environmental friendliness, reducing greenhouse effects), local energy markets inside the UK will be developed resulting in significant wealth creation and inward investment.
People: A variety of events will be held in the host institution throughout the project for both public and university students. For the public, introductory presentations and open discussions can be conducted as the current project can provide detailed information regarding the impact of biofuels production process on the environment. This is because environmental impact is one of the major public concerns arising from the development of new processes and technologies.
Society: The development, industrialisation, and commercial use of sustainable biofuels as a replacement of traditional non-renewable energy sources has the potential to make substantial benefits to the public health and general social welfare.
As biofuels are synthesised through microalgae photosynthesis where solar energy and atmospheric carbon dioxide are the direct energy and carbon source, respectively, no additional carbon dioxide is realised to the environment when burning these fuels. Therefore, biofuels can significantly mitigate the greenhouse effects which have been demonstrated to severely threat public health and life quality (e.g. causing vascular diseases, infectious diseases, and heat-related deaths).
Furthermore, as the project aims to conduct a detailed environmental and economical assessment on sustainable excretable biofuels production, its research outcomes can provide clear directions on the development of environmental and energy policies which are major concerns of societal issues and governmental institutions.
Economy: The current project focuses on the commercialisation of renewable biofuels, which has great potential to affect the national energy supply market, in particular transportation energy. At this moment, it has been reported that the UK continues increasing the amount of imported oil and natural gas from the Middle East and Russia due to its ever-dwindling fossil fuel reserves. Therefore, by replacing imported fuels with biofuels, the UK will be benefited financially and its national energy market risk will be ameliorated.
In addition, due to the advantages of biofuels (e.g. environmental friendliness, reducing greenhouse effects), local energy markets inside the UK will be developed resulting in significant wealth creation and inward investment.
People: A variety of events will be held in the host institution throughout the project for both public and university students. For the public, introductory presentations and open discussions can be conducted as the current project can provide detailed information regarding the impact of biofuels production process on the environment. This is because environmental impact is one of the major public concerns arising from the development of new processes and technologies.
People |
ORCID iD |
Ehecatl Del Rio Chanona (Principal Investigator / Fellow) |
Publications
Zhang D
(2018)
Life cycle assessments of bio-based sustainable polylimonene carbonate production processes
in Sustainable Production and Consumption
Zhang D
(2018)
Life cycle assessments for biomass derived sustainable biopolymer & energy co-generation
in Sustainable Production and Consumption
Zhang D
(2019)
Hybrid physics-based and data-driven modeling for bioprocess online simulation and optimization.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Sachio S
(2021)
Simultaneous Process Design and Control Optimization using Reinforcement Learning
in IFAC-PapersOnLine
Petsagkourakis P
(2020)
Chance Constrained Policy Optimization for Process Control and Optimization
Petsagkourakis P
(2020)
Reinforcement learning for batch bioprocess optimization
in Computers & Chemical Engineering
Petsagkourakis P
(2022)
Chance constrained policy optimization for process control and optimization
in Journal of Process Control
Pan E
(2021)
Constrained model-free reinforcement learning for process optimization
in Computers & Chemical Engineering
Palamae S
(2018)
Production of renewable biohydrogen by Rhodobacter sphaeroides S10: A comparison of photobioreactors
in Journal of Cleaner Production
Jing K
(2018)
Overproduction of L-tryptophan via simultaneous feed of glucose and anthranilic acid from recombinant Escherichia coli W3110: Kinetic modeling and process scale-up.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Iruretagoyena D
(2018)
13th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering (PSE 2018)
Harun I
(2018)
Photocatalytic Production of Bisabolene from Green Microalgae Mutant: Process Analysis and Kinetic Modeling
in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research
Estrada-Wiese D
(2018)
Stochastic optimization of broadband reflecting photonic structures.
in Scientific reports
Del Rio-Chanona EA
(2018)
Dynamic modeling of green algae cultivation in a photobioreactor for sustainable biodiesel production.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Del Rio-Chanona EA
(2019)
Comparison of physics-based and data-driven modelling techniques for dynamic optimisation of fed-batch bioprocesses.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Del Rio-Chanona EA
(2017)
An efficient model construction strategy to simulate microalgal lutein photo-production dynamic process.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Del Rio-Chanona EA
(2019)
Review of advanced physical and data-driven models for dynamic bioprocess simulation: Case study of algae-bacteria consortium wastewater treatment.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Del Rio-Chanona E
(2018)
A Bilevel Programming Approach to Optimize C-phycocyanin Bio-production under Uncertainty
in IFAC-PapersOnLine
Del Rio-Chanona E
(2017)
Sustainable biopolymer synthesis via superstructure and multiobjective optimization
in AIChE Journal
Del Rio-Chanona E
(2018)
Deep learning-based surrogate modeling and optimization for microalgal biofuel production and photobioreactor design
in AIChE Journal
Bradford E
(2018)
Dynamic modeling and optimization of sustainable algal production with uncertainty using multivariate Gaussian processes
in Computers & Chemical Engineering
Bernardi A
(2020)
30th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering
Bernardi A
(2019)
29th European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering
Bernardi A
(2022)
14th International Symposium on Process Systems Engineering
Anye Cho B
(2021)
Synergising biomass growth kinetics and transport mechanisms to simulate light/dark cycle effects on photo-production systems.
in Biotechnology and bioengineering
Description | We ratified that excretable biofuels must be integrated into wider biorefineries for the to be economically viable. We will continue to explore the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning on the optimisation of the production process of bio processes. |
Exploitation Route | This tells us that there is still a lot to do, particularly in the integration of many different strains and co-production of bioprocesses to drive economic feasibility. |
Sectors | Chemicals,Manufacturing, including Industrial Biotechology |
Description | International Meeting on Artificial Intelligence and its Applications (RIIAA) |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | The first International Meeting on Artificial Intelligence and its Applications (RIIAA) was held in Mexico City on August 2018, with the aim of catalysing the development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Latin America. Funding from Google Deepming and Facebook was secured for this activity, and it brought together students, academics, and professionals to network, interact and learn. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018 |
URL | https://riiaa.org/riiaa1.0/ |
Description | Production of biohydrogen by microorganisms |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | A 20 minute podcast on how at Imperial College we use computational modelling and optimisation techniques to maximise the production of biofuels (specifically biohydrogen) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | http://imryt.org/radio/la-arana-patona/produccion-de-hidrogeno-y-microorganismos |