Overview
Course video
Learn the basics of sustainable processing for biobased products to further understand their impact on global sustainability.
As fossil-based fuels and raw materials contribute to climate change, the use of renewable materials and energy as an alternative is increasingly important and common. This transition is not a luxury, but rather a necessity. We can use the unique properties of microorganisms to convert organic waste streams into biomaterials, chemicals and biofuels.
This course provides the insights and tools for the design of biotechnology processes in a sustainable way. Five experienced course leaders will teach you the basics of industrial biotechnology and how to apply these to the design of fermentation processes for the production of fuels, chemicals and foodstuffs.
Throughout this course, you will be challenged to design your own biotechnological process and evaluate its performance and sustainability. This undergraduate course includes guest lectures from industry as well as from the University of Campinas in Brazil, with over 40 years of experience in bio-ethanol production. The course is a joint initiative of TU Delft, the international BE-Basic consortium and University of Campinas.
What you'll learn
After this course all learners will be able to:
1. appreciate the need for sustainable innovation and how biotechnology and biobased production can contribute to this
2. describe the global context of biobased production
3. map the biobased economy, from research to application and from raw materials to products
4. solve basic level calculations in bioprocess engineering.
Verified learners will have the added benefit of being able to:
5. integrate scientific and technological knowledge on the use of bioprocesses for industrial products at the cell and process level
6. develop and assess the conditions for efficient and sustainable design of bioprocesses
7. solve undergraduate engineering level calculations in bioprocess engineering.
Over 25 employees of Zymergen participated in the online course "Industrial Biotechnology" offered by TU Delft. This resulted in increased understanding of microbial physiology and fermentation technology and how to scale up bioproduction processes. Through this course, the quality of our R&D work will further improve and timelines for commercialization of bioprocesses will be shortened - Stefan de Kok, Director Fermentation - Zymergen
Details
Course Syllabus
Unit 1. Biotechnology for Biobased Products
- Why develop a biobased economy?
- Industrial biotechnology
- Feedstocks - renewable sources of biomass for biobased products
- Process to produce bio-PDO (1,3-Propanediol)
- Benefits for society and sustainability - evaluating the effects of biobased production
Unit 2. Balances and Microbial Rates
- Microorganisms and their function in nature
- Functional understanding of nutrient requirements for microbial growth
- Learning about the process: Broth balances
- Learning about the process: Gas phase balances
- Learning about the microorganism: q-rates and chemostat
- Learning about the process and organism
Unit 3. The Black Box Model and Process Reaction
- The process reaction
- Basics of the black box model
- Energy consuming and energy producing products
- A PDO black box model: experiments for parameter identification
- Black box models: The PDO process reaction as function of μ
- PDO continuous process design: calculation of inputs and outputs using the process reaction
- Aerobic PDO process: improving sustainability
- Introduction to Metabolic Flux Analysis
Unit 4. Fermentation Design
- Introduction to fermentation technology
- The large-scale fermenter
- Fermenter operation
- Gas transport
- Heat transport
- Mixing
- Basic approach to design and then optimize a PDO fermentation process
Unit 5. Up- and Down-stream process integration
- Towards an integrated bioprocess
- Pre-treatment
- Separation and formulation
- Separation principles
- Conceptual process design for 1,3 PDO production
- Process integration for 1,3 PDO production
Unit 6. Process Evaluation and Sustainability
- Designing a sustainable business case
- Economics of a process design
- Environmental assessment of a process design
- Social sustainability
- Sustainability in a global context
License
Unless otherwise specified, the Course Materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Admission
This is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that runs on EdX.
Prerequisites
High school understanding of mathematics. First year undergraduate level of (bio)chemistry and biology.
