Design of Distributed Marine Biorefineries

Abstract

Biomass to fuel programs are under research and development worldwide. The largest biomass programs are underway in the USA and in Europe. In the coming decades, however, developing countries will be responsible for the majority of increases in transportation fuel demand. Although the lack of existing large-scale infrastructure and primary resources preclude oil refining in the majority of developing countries, this provides an opportunity for the rapid implementation of small scale distributed biorefineries to serve communities locally. In this talk I will set a precedent in combining thermodynamic, metabolic, and sustainability analyses for biorefinery design. I will exemplify this approach through the design and optimization of a marine biorefinery for an average town in rural India. In this combined model, I will talk about sustainability factors, intensive macro algae Ulva farming, and metabolic modeling of the biological conversion of Ulva feedstock to bioethanol by a synthetic microbial community consisting of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and a bacterium, Escherichia coli. 

Biography:

Alexander Golberg holds a PhD in Bioengineering from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and BSc (Cum Laude) in Biotechnology and Food Engineering from Technion-IIT. Alex completed a postdoctoral training in Mechanical Engineering in  UC Berkeley and currently is a fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, Shriners Burn Hospital for Children and Harvard Medical School. His main research interests are in the field of biological systems engineering. 

Reference:

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Golberg, A, Vitkin,E, Linshiz,G, AhmaKhan,S, Hillson, N.J, Yakhini Z, Yarmush,M.L. Proposed Design of Distributed Marine Biorefineries: Thermodynamics, Technology, and Sustainability Implications for Developing economies.  Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining.  In print