After this course participants will be able to:

• Explain the need for sustainable innovation and how biotechnology and biobased production can contribute to this
• Describe the global context of biobased production
• Map the biobased economy, from research to application and from raw materials to products
• Solve basic level calculations in bioprocess engineering

Verified learners will have the added benefit of being able to:

• Integrate scientific and technological knowledge on the use of bioprocesses for industrial products at the cell and process level
• Develop and assess the conditions for efficient and sustainable design of bioprocesses
• Perform undergraduate engineering level calculations in bioprocess engineering

Getting started/Introduction is included in Week 1

Unit 1. Biotechnology for Biobased Products

• Why develop a biobased/circular economy?
• Industrial biotechnology
• Feedstocks - renewable sources of biomass/CCU for biobased products
• Process to produce bio-PDO (1,3-Propanediol)
• Benefits for society and sustainability - evaluating the effects of biobased production

Unit 2. Fermentation Essentials (PDO focus)

• Microbes and interaction their environment
• Rates and balances
• The process reaction and the black box model
• The PDO case
• Introduction fermentation technology
• Scale-up via scale-down

Unit 3. Downstream processing principles and design

• Separation equipment and principles
• Concentration
• Drying and formulation
• Process Systems Engineering

Unit 4. Integral, Zero-emission Bioprocess Design

• Towards an integrated bioprocess
• 1st and 2nd generation feedstock and pre-treatment: producing high quality feedstock
• 3rd to 5th generation feedstock: Alternative carbon, electron and energy sources
• Bioprocesses using 3rd to 5th generation feedstock
• Overall process - syngas fermentation to ethanol

Unit 5. Process design and Sustainability assessment

• Conceptual process design
• Mass and energy balances
• Process economics
• Environmental impacts analysis and life cycle assessment
• Social sustainability
• Sustainability in a global context

Unit 6. Wrap-up

• Closing lecture: Industrial Biotechnology outlook (preliminary title)
• Final assessment

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