Production biocatalytique de bioproduits lipidiques à partir de matières premières renouvelables et

Compared to plant oils, microbial pathway has many advantages:

- the ability to propose an outstanding safeguard against volatile supplies and fossil oil prices by using a wide range of agricultural non food substrates, effluents or industrial co-products

- the ability of tuning lipid composition to modulate fatty acid profile by using different wild strains, engineered micro-organisms and culture strategies;

- the valorisation of co-products as proteins for animal food, according to the biorefinery concept.

- the quantitative and qualitative reproducibility of the microbial processes without geographic and climate dependence

- the maturity of fermentation technology involved in the process, from laboratory pilot up to industrial scale

- strong indications that the environmental gain of biofuel produced by microorganisms is greater than any other pathways of biofuel production (preliminary results from SWAFEA project).

7 WP combined research and development works with strong interactions between multidisciplinary skills (genetic engineering, metabolism, microbial engineering, bioprocess, economy, environmental, social and ethic sciences):

- (WP1) screened industrial pre-treated substrates or by-products provided by internal partners and evaluated their fermentescibility ( by products from starch and sugar refinery, by products from biodiesel industry, high dry matter content lignocellulosic substrates from wood or wheat straw provided by external producers, CO₂ and its derivatives within a recycling by-product strategy). A highly attractive approach, called a consolidated bioprocess, was also investigated to convert lignocellulosic biomass-to-lipid in one step with bi-functional microorganisms;

- (WP2) developed new and robust industrial microorganisms to modulate intracellular lipid profile and to optimise lipid accumulation; from physiology study, biological and physical bottlenecks were identified and intensive bioprocess strategies were deduced according to realistic industrial criteria;

- (WP3) transposed oilseed extraction methods to oil microbial cells and/or developed new methods of pre-treatment of microbial cells and extraction process involving green solvents;

-  (WP4) quantified the performances for microorganisms/substrates within optimized fermentation strategies taking into account the specificities of the substrates, strains and products; the quantification was performed in laboratory pilots (from 1 to 20 litres) and small industrial pilot (m³). The impact of co-products valorisation, as CO₂, glycerol, proteins and various lipids, on the overall production costs of lipids was evaluated. A multi-stage scale-up approach was employed with mass and energy balances. The proof of feasibility at pilot scale was tested in a first run.

- (WP5 ) evaluated all over the project, environmental, economic, technological and ethic impacts including Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), to ensure an efficient and sustainable process for Bio Jet fuel production;

- (WP6) transfered research outputs and customised information and knowledge;

- (WP7) provided a strong component in management.