Industrial and commercial development of pressurized sub & supercritical fluid technologies applied to production of renewable chemicals

• Grant number: 17/20568-2
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Start date: September 01, 2018
• End date: February 28, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Food Science and Technology - Food Engineering
• Agreement: FINEP - PIPE/PAPPE Grant
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Fernando Mendes
• Grantee: Luiz Fernando Mendes
• Company: Bioativos Naturais Ltda. - ME
• CNAE: Pesquisa e desenvolvimento experimental em ciências físicas e naturais
• City: São Paulo
• Associated researchers: Pedro Ivo Nunes de Carvalho ; Rafael Frascino Cassaro
• Associated research grant: 16/00983-2 - Fractionation of high added value compounds from microalgae in the context of sustainable biorefinery, AP.PIPE

Abstract

The New Bio-economy, from 2020 on, will forbid products that are derived from petroleum and conventional processes, such as extractions with petrochemical solvents, which processing time is expensive, consume a lot of reagents and biomasses, generate large number of tons of residues, change the products quality, jeopardize the environment and human and animal health, etc. Before this current scenario, the sub and supercritical fluid extraction technologies plays an important role in the New Bio-economy. However, the technology that uses CO2 in its supercritical state (SFE-CO2) has been very little used to the industrial scale. The technology that uses the sub and supercritical water (SWH) is poorly exploited (there is only one company in the world that uses this process to large scale). There is no company in Latin America that uses these technologies to obtain ingredients from renewable biomasses to commercial scale. The Bioativos Naturais Ltda is the first company that has an entrepreneurial initiative to use these technologies within an unprecedent holistic context in the international scenario, that is to say, the integration of technologies in bio-refineries to obtain bio-products from microalgae, ginger and curcuma. The company has the innovation seal of FAPESP/PIPE, CNPq and Instituto SENAI de Inovação em Biomassa - MS (around R$3,4 million of investment). Besides developing its own innovative processes to full conversion of biomass, Bioativos builts its own distinctive SFE and SWH equipments, which cost approximately ten times less when compared to the imported ones. This represents a huge financial advantage to the company regarding the future competitors, as well as the first breakthrough to the technological domain and independence in Latin America. Before the current stage of research in two projects PIPE phase II, this proposal aims not only the industrial development of the technologies mentioned above, but also the commercial development of the products. The results of the first project show that the technology can scale up in the future and the products reach the market. (AU)