[HN Gopher] New pipeline makes valuable organic acid from plants...
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       New pipeline makes valuable organic acid from plants-saving money
       and emissions
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2023-10-08 17:17 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | woleium wrote:
       | This is great, assuming it still works after scaled up testing.
       | My university used to do a lot of what they called "bucket
       | chemistry" scaling up reactions for industrial scale. They had
       | those labs on the top floor with double thickness concrete floor
       | so it would only blow the roof off in case of the worst outcome.
       | 
       | " The pilot-scale work showed the new strains could produce up to
       | 110 g/L of succinic acid and, after batch fermentation and
       | downstream processing, an overall yield of 64%"
       | 
       | "could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 34% to 90% relative to
       | fossil fuel-based production processes." - so still a lot of
       | uncertainty then.
        
       | quicon wrote:
       | Based on technological advances and an increased need for
       | renewable intermediates in different application fields, BASF and
       | Corbion Purac have been working on the development of biobased
       | succinic acid since 2009.
       | 
       | https://www.basf.com/ru/ru/media/news-releases/2014/03/p-14-...
        
       | Modified3019 wrote:
       | >The team of University of Illinois and Princeton University
       | researchers created a cost-effective, end-to-end pipeline for
       | this valuable organic acid by engineering a tough, acid-tolerant
       | yeast as the fermenting agent, avoiding costly steps in
       | downstream processing.
       | 
       | Seems like the most important part, they modified yeast to make
       | it for them which can keep making the acid without needing to
       | constantly adjust the pH to keep them alive, which introduces
       | things that have to be removed later at great cost.
        
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       (page generated 2023-10-08 23:01 UTC)