COHORIS – Continuous enzymatic hydrolysis in oscillatory flow as process intensification strategy for biorefineries

Despite intensive research activities in biorefineries on sustainable biomass conversion to value-added products, key steps such as hydrolysis, remain bottlenecks in technical and economic efficiency and require radical intensification.

Typically, the hydrolysis step is processed in stirred tank reactors (STRs), however the process economics are limited by challenges such as the energy intense and insufficient mixing with unstructured heat and mass transfer, and as a result restricted biomass loading. Furthermore, the slow reaction kinetics require long residence times. Building on previous research results with significant increase in turnover of enzymatic hydrolysis in OFB, COHORIS will investigate in detail the possible procedural modes of operation for a continuous process, as well as the potential reduction of energy intensity and improved hydrolysis kinetics (effect of turbulent flow on enzyme-substrate binding, product inhibition mitigation). The OFB will be evaluated in detail on cellulose hydrolysis and transferred to protein hydrolysis applications. The process intensification potential is calculated and presented for 3 significant applications in biorefineries.