Day 1 :
Keynote Forum
Grace N Ijoma
Institute for the Development of Energy for African Sustainability
Keynote: Comparative evaluation of enzyme production efficiency of monocultures and paired interactions of fungi on different agricultural substrates
Time : 09:00AM
Biography:
Dr. Grace N Ijoma is a senior lecturer of Biotechnology at the Pearson Institute of Higher Education and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of South Africa. Her PhD focused on antagonistic interspecific interactions amongst fungi. Previous paper presentation of portions of this work was presented at 8th International Conference on Environmental Science and Technology. Houston Texas, USA in 2016 and was judged first place paper. She is eclectic in her research interests and has a keen interest in several areas including Bioprospecting of niche environments, Food Microbiology, Environmental and Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (particularly Fermentation technology and process optimization), Microbial enzymes and biodegradation of xenobiotic compounds including polyaromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides and synthetic dyes, Ground water quality research and Microbial treatment of industrial waste water, Solid waste management. She is currently supervising undergraduate and post graduate research projects designed towards industrially relevant applications
Abstract:
There is a renewed interest in finding sustainable energy sources with particular focus on agricultural waste residues. The justification for this perspective is that this eliminates the need to cultivate already scarce land mass and has the added advantage of utilizing agricultural residues that otherwise would have presented problems of waste management. However, the use of agricultural waste residue is significantly hindered by the difficulty in degradation of lignocellulose components of its structure. Ligninolytic fungi have the ability to degrade these agricultural waste residues but enzymes employed in the degradation process are produced in limited quantities and more often during the secondary metabolism by these organisms. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: The objective of this study was to investigate a strategy that could improve the production of these enzymes and likely accelerate the organisms into secondary phase enzyme production mode. Dual culture combinations of 10 fungi that had previously demonstrated the ability to produce ligninolytic enzymes were cultivated on PDA to ascertain their interspecific interaction and also on three agricultural residues, corn cob, sugarcane bagasse and wheat straw. Spectrophotometric analysis of the enzyme activities of laccase (Lacc), manganese peroxidase (MnP) and lignin peroxidase (LiP) demonstrated that observed antagonistic invasions yielded an increased enzyme activity in dual cultures on all the substrates. Findings: The highest ligninolytic enzyme production was observed in invasion/replacement interactions that involved Trichoderma sp. KN10 with average mean value in MnP production was approximately 1.46 U/ml compared to all monocultures of 0.055 U/ml. Similarly, Lacc mean value was 0.10 U/ml compared to monocultures value of 0.05 U/ml. This study demonstrated and proved that antagonistic invasion by some fungi in co-culture, although dependent on substrate affinity, can increase production of one or more of the three enzymes laccase, lignin peroxidase and manganese peroxidase.
Keynote Forum
Muhammad Usman
Former Director General of Agricultural Research System, Pakistan
Keynote: Bioenergy is the powerful tool on the poverty reduction and hunger in the world particularly South Asia
Time : 09:30AM
Biography:
Abstract:
Keynote Forum
Bor-Yann Chen
National I-Lan University, Taiwan
Keynote: Exploring optimal supplement strategy of polyphenolics-abundant herbal extracts for bioenergy stimulation in microbial fuel cells
Time : 10:00 AM
Biography:
Abstract:
- Biofuels | Biomass | Bioethonal | Biogas
Location: Meeting Hall: Wright
Chair
Bor-Yann Chen
National I-Lan University, Taiwan
Session Introduction
Abderrahim Bouaida
University of Complutense, Spain
Title: One-step enzymatic ethanolysis of high free fatty acid Jatropha oil for biodiesel production.Improvement of cold flow properties
Biography:
Abstract:
Muluken Eshetu
Jimma University, Ethiopia
Title: Sequential production of methyl ester, bioethanol and briquette from spent coffee ground
Biography:
Abstract:
Wenquan Wang
Institute of Tropical Biosciences and Biotechnology, China
Title: Genomics approaching value added varieties with high efficiency bioethanol making in cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz)
Biography:
Abstract:
Soo-Young No
Chungbuk National University, South Korea
Title: Utilization of higher alcohols to CI engines – A review
Biography:
Abstract:
M.K. Ogun
Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
Title: Biogas potential of deinking sludge from wastepaper recycling industry: Influence of dewatering degree and high calcium carbonate content
Biography:
Abstract:
- Biomass feed stocks for renewable energy generation | Processes for Bioenergy | Biofuels | Renewable energy | Biogas | Biomass
Location: Meeting Hall: Wright
Chair
Soo-Young no
Chungbuk National University, South korea
Session Introduction
Bismark Ameyaw
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
Title: Determinants of energy production from biomass: Multivariate Panel Data Evidence for IEA-30 Countries
Biography:
Abstract:
Santhosh Pillai
Durban University of Technology, South Africa
Title: Untapped agricultural biomass into a value-added product: An enzymatic approach
Biography:
Abstract:
L E Macaskie
University of Birmingham, UK
Title: Novel biogenic catalysts with catalytic applications in bioenergy processes
Biography:
L E Macaskie did her BSc and PhD in Microbial Biochemistry (University of London) in the 1970s, moving to the University of Oxford (postdoctoral, then faculty staff in Department of Biochemistry) until 1991 when she took up a lectureship, then personal Chair, at the University of Birmingham in Applied Microbiology. Her dual interests center on bacterially manufactured nanoparticles and bio-nano minerals for nuclear decontamination processes and precious metal neo-catalysts for clean energy, green chemistry and environment. Needing hydrogen to feed her bacteria. She developed a process to make bio-H2 via fermentation of food wastes, outperforming other renewable energy processes in terms of energy balance.
Abstract:
Ramachandran Sivaramakrishnan
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Title: Biorefinery approach of microalgae feedstock for the production of É›-polylysine and biodiesel
Biography:
Ramachandran Sivaramakrishnan is currently a Senior Post-Doctoral Research in the Cyanobacterial Biotechnology (Biochem dept.) Group Led by Dr. Aran Incharoensakdi at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. His research interests include the production of biofuels, value-added products, understanding the mechanism of biofuel productions and exploring value-added products. Before joining Dr. Aran Incharoensakdi lab, he worked as a Junior research fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Anna University, India.
Abstract:
Environmental problems coupled with rapid depletion of fossil fuel and its resources prompted researchers to find alternative renewable resources and its commercialization. The biomass from microalgae with high oil content is a promising feedstock for the renewable resources. Compared with plants, microalgae can produce more oil per hectare with a shorter production cycle. The coupling of algae biofuels with high value compounds production widens the market opportunities which fits well with a recent trend of biorefinery concept. For biorefinery approach, it is essential to select the microalgae which contain high amounts of organic matters such as lipids and carbohydrates which can be used for biorefinery approaches. The present study focuses on the concomitant production of methyl ester and É›-polylysine from microalgae feedstock. The harvesting efficiency of Botryococcus sp. was increased up to 93% by treatment with a flocculant FeCl3 at 100 mg/L for 30 min. The DMC (dimethyl carbonate) mediated enzyme catalyzed in-situ transesterification of Botryococcus sp. yielded the maximum methyl esters of 93% under optimized conditions. The spent biomass was further hydrolyzed using acid and the hydrolyzate obtained was used to produce value-added product e-polylysine using Streptomomyces sp. The key components of sugar and MgSO4 involved in the ε-polylysine production were optimized whereby the maximum ε-polylysine production was achieved at 50 g/L sugars and 0.3 g/L MgSO4. The ε-polylysine production was further improved by the supplementation of important acids (lysine and aspartate) and TCA cycle intermediates (citric acid and α-ketoglutaric acid). The maximum production of 2.31 g/L was found with 4 mM citric acid supplementation after 130h. The present study demonstrated the effective harvesting method of microalgae and integrated production of methyl ester and ε-polylysine as a biorefinery approach. The promising path of the biorefinery concept in the present study will help to develop the economy based sustainable fuels and value-added compounds production in the near future.
Amos Oppong
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China
Title: Energy policies needed to transition to a green economy based on high-accuracy forecasts
Biography:
Amos Oppong is a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Management and Economics (SME) of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), and a Member of the International Association of Energy Economists (IAEE). He specializes in environmental energy and economic modelling and forecasting.
Abstract:
Renewable energy (including bioenergy) is a key for economic developmental consistency and supply is necessary for keeping countries on a sustained growth path. In order to minimize cost due to over (excess supply) and/ or under supply (shortage), policymakers and stakeholders leverage on business-as-usual (BAU) energy demand projections as benchmarks to design and implement efficient policies. Existing high-profile energy demand forecasting models (such as NEMS) achieve relatively high accuracies for short- and medium-term projections but records high forecast inaccuracies when utilized for long term cases due to the massive assumption dependent explanatory variables whose assumptions often deviate from realized levels but are pivotal to the core forecasting modules. Here, we implement a relatively high-accuracy level, trend and seasonality consistent technique that is devoid of assumption driven variables for BAU long-term energy demand forecasting. We utilize the technique to forecast bioenergy and total primary energy supply in the USA. The results suggest that for the 2012-2016 fiveyear forecast, the accuracy of the proposed technique strikingly outperform the regression and double exponential smoothing (DES) benchmark models and record significant improvement up to ~10- fold on NEMS related reference case forecast as reported in Annual Energy Outlook 2011 (AEO2011) and AEO2012. Outputs from applying the proposed high-accuracy technique for long-term production and consumption projections show that total renewable energies will account for ~15.77% out of the expected ~101.75 quadrillion Btu total primary energy consumption in 2035; thus radical and revolutionary energy policies are required for USA to achieve the ‘100% renewables by 2035’ target approved by the U.S. Conference of Mayors in June 2017
Biography:
Abstract:
- Poster presentation
Location: Meeting Hall: Wright
Chair
Grace N Ijoma
University of South Africa, South Africa
Session Introduction
Gema Sevilla Toboso
Centro Nacional del Hidrógeno (CNH2), Spain
Title: Agro-food industry waste for BioHydrogen production by dark fermentation
Biography:
Gema Sevilla Toboso has her expertise in improving the environment. Her evaluation based on agro-food industry waste from Castilla-La Mancha creates new ways to produce hydrogen and thus improve the environment through the generation of a fuel that does not produce greenhouse gases while treating this waste. Her investigation is carried out in CNH2, a National Research Centre at the service of the entire Scientific, Technology and Industrial Community.
Abstract:
Increasing demand for energy, depletion of primary energy sources (i.e., coal and oil) and environmental degradation have made the production of energy from alternative nonconventional sources essential. In the same way, recent trends in food production have led to an increase in the generation of wastes during food processing, that needs further management to avoid environmental problems. Therefore, hydrogen produced from renewable sources could play an important role for future energy economy as clean, CO2 neutral and environmentally friendly energy carrier. Hydrogen is easily used in fuel cells for electricity production, whose high energy yield of 122 kJ g− 1, which is 2.75 times greater than known hydrocarbon fuels, allows its use as a fuel for transportation. In addition, it can be stored not only chemically but also physiochemically in various solid and liquid composites. Hydrogen can be produced from a wide-ranging variety of primary energy sources and different production technologies. However, currently most of it is produced by Steam Reforming from nonrenewable feedstock, producing high greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, fermentative hydrogen production can utilize renewable carbohydrate-based substrates, such as waste biomass from agricultural sectors. Furthermore, this process occurs at lower temperatures and pressures, and is therefore less energy-intensive than chemical and electrochemical processes. So, abundant biomass from various industries could be a sustainable source for biohydrogen (hydrogen produced by living organisms) where combination of waste treatment and energy production would be an advantage. In this work different types of agro-food industry waste from Castilla- La Mancha (dairy wastes, beer lees, winery waste and mushroom waste) have been studied in order to determine the substrate with the highest biohydrogen production by dark fermentation. For this purpose, different experiments have been carried out with the aim of quantify certain characteristics of substrates, like carbohydrate content and trace elements, that influence in the H2 yield.
Biography:
A V Bailey PhD and D.Sc., (Chemistry) is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science of RIT, USA actively teaching undergraduate courses ranging from General & Analytical Chemistry through ‘Clean energy” courses including three online courses, which she designed. She holds forty patents and have authored over 80 scientific publications, including four books. As a member of clean energy team, she developed and taught a new lecture and lab courses clean energy: hydrogen/fuel cells based on the written textbooks. She has advised undergraduate students doing research in the field of polymer membranes for fuel cells. As a PI of five exelon constellation company grants education program about electricity generation using fuel cells 2015 -2019, she conducts training sessions to NY State High School Teachers. She was nominated for the outstanding teaching award for RIT Non-Tenure-Track Faculty and for the Provost's Innovative Teaching with Technology Award.
Abstract:
Biography:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev & Azrieli College of Engineering • Chemical Engineering & Pharmaceutical Engineering.
Abstract:
It is difficult to represent the behavior of a photosynthetic culture by simple kinetic expressions. This is specially so when the dynamic behavior of the cultures has to be considered, because of the interaction of fluid dynamics with photosynthesis. All of the mathematical models of photosynthesis available in the literature are based on the lumping of a large amount of biochemical reactions into simpler steps or into hypothetical concepts, which aim at representing the behavior of the actual biochemical apparatus. The selection of a model is, thus, the result of the compromise between the ‘loyalties to biology’, that is, to the elements of the biochemical steps that are quite known in the photosynthetic process, and the computational burden resulting of a complex mathematical formulation. Photosynthetic cells change the rate of biomass synthesis as the irradiance that they perceive changes. Because of this, data are collected usually after keeping the culture at a constant irradiance during considerable time. During this time, the cells adequate its photosynthetic elements to those conditions and this is detected as a change not only in production rate, but also in the cell composition, mainly as chlorophyll a (Chla) concentration change. This is called photo acclimation or photoadaptation. The minimal requirement for the design of a PBR is the P–I curve, that is, the dependence of the photosynthesis rate on irradiance, with easily measurable parameters usually called α, the initial photosynthesis rate, and Pm, the maximal photosynthesis rate, at certain irradiance Is. Thus, the parameters of the curve, in spite of being empirically determined, can be associated to the growth process and to the behavior of the culture, which depend on its physiological state. P is usually given in terms of biomass produced per unit time and unit volume (or mass) of the culture, or per unit illuminated surface. The basic approach is valid only for a photo acclimated system, that is, a system that has been kept for sufficient time at each of the irradiances. If the P–I curve is the simplest way of representing the kinetics of photosynthesis, on the other end of the range there is a group of much more sophisticated models that can be called physiological, aiming at the representation of the dynamic behavior of photosynthetic cells, and proposing approximations to the mechanism operating inside the cells which depends on their capacity of adaptation to different illumination intensities. Those models try to express the dynamics of a photosynthetic culture taking into account a considerable amount of variables in addition of the obvious (carbon source and light), and among them various substrates that algae require for growth, as nitrate and phosphate, and also intracellular concentrations of Chla, the extent of light-damaged protein D1 in photosystem II (PSII), nitrogen and carbon content in the cell, etc. The goal of those advanced models is representing mathematically the actual physiology of the photosynthetic cells. An expectable drawback in this type of models is the large amount of parameters that have to be adjusted. There is still another group of models of photosynthesis that can be situated between the previous two extremes. Those are the models using the concept of photosynthetic unit (PSU), also called photosynthetic factories (PSUs).2,4,45– 52 These models are especially instrumental in representing the dynamics of the photobioreactors, because they do not aim at describing the physiology of the cell but the behavior of the algal culture. The main variable considered is the light intensity, which is usually the limiting substrate in dense cultures as those focused for industrial production. It is assumed that all the other substrates are provided at sufficient rate and being in excess do not need to be taken as variables. The engineering aspects of the addition of those nutrients to the bioreactor are simply based on stoichiometry. There is a wide range of devices that have been used for the modeling of PBRs. Many of those devices are the result of ingenious invention and empirical trial & error processes. Only a small part of those have been developed via modelling and using adequate kinetic representations of the biomass growth. The poster will review critically those systems.
Alan J Stephen
University of Birmingham, UK
Title: E. coli synthesized platinum and palladium nanoparticles as polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) catalysts
Biography:
Abstract:
S A Archer
University of Birmingham, UK
Title: Bio-catalytic upgrading of heavy and pyrolysis oils: Optioneering of fossil, biorefined and renewable resources
Biography:
S A Archer is a PhD candidate, studying for a Doctorate in Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and their Applications, whilst working with the Resource Recovery from Wastes programme (RRfW). Her knowledge and skills involve the application of life cycle thinking and environmental impact assessments to produce liquid and gaseous fuel products from biomass and waste residues in addition to biorefined neo-catalysts from resources recovered from waste streams. Her work aims to conduct an LCA on the catalytic upgrading of both heavy fossil oil and pyrolysis oils from dry biomass, comparing commercial and biocatalysts. The environmental impact for each pathway will be identified within a ‘well to gate’ (cradle to gate) system boundary, alongside an additional fuel use analysis separate from the LCA.
Abstract:
Jai Hyun Park
Gyeongsang National University, South Korea
Title: Evaluation of the availability of growing media containing woody biomass on experimental slope for slope greening
Biography:
Jai Hyun Park is a PhD candidate in Gyeongsang National University, South Korea. His studies are in growing media for growing various plants. He is interested in biomass and bio-ethanol production.
Abstract:
Many road slopes have been created along with many road works. Since these road slopes have problems of landslides and soil erosion, there are many studies on road slope greening. However, it is difficult to grow plants on a general slope. Generally, growing medium is used to replace soil for plant growth and in recent years, many studies have been conducted to produce the growing medium using various materials such as agricultural byproducts and sewage sludge. Since, the study on the road slope greening to use this growing medium is quite limited, we produce the growing media using woody biomass and apply the prepared growing media to the preliminary slope to determine the germination of Lotus corniculatus. The growing media was prepared by mixing woody biomass, peat, perlite and sodium nitrate. Soil was used as a control. Soil, soil and growing media mixture (1:1, w/w) and growing media were applied to slope to observe physical and chemical properties and germination of Lotus corniculatus. As a result, physical properties (moisture content, bulk density and porosity) were improved by using growing media to compare soil for plant growth. Among the chemical properties, the organic matter, available phosphate and CEC were also higher in the using growing media than soil. However, the germination of Lotus corniculatus was the highest in the mixture of soil and growing media followed by the higher in the soil. The lowest germination was in the growing media. In conclusion, when the results of physical and chemical properties and germination, it was confirmed that the mixture of soil and the growing media was most suitable for plant growth on the slope.
Si Young Ha
Gyeongsang National University, South Korea
Title: Effects of LED on mycelium weight and cordycepin content of submerged cultured vegetable worms (Cordyceps militaris)
Biography:
Si Young Ha is student and PhD candidate of Gyeongsang National University in South Korea. She had retained a keen interest in applied and various fields of biomass. In particular, she has been studying the chemistry of woody biomass and their efficacy in treatment of vitiligo or atopic for a long time. She also has experience in poster presentation in the symposium on biotechnology for fuels and chemicals (2016) and bioenergy conference (2017
Abstract:
More recently, Cordyceps militaris has been widely used due to its folkloric activities, which are not based on scientific studies. Cordycepin (3′-deoxyadenosine), a metabolite of C. militaris, has been showed to inhibit the growth of various tumor cells. Previous work reported the isolation of cordycepin from liquid culture medium of C. militaris and its pharmacological functions. But, as far as we know, there is limited knowledge about the light emitting diode (LED) condition for cordycepin production by C. militaris. In this paper, the effects of LED were focused in order to improve the cordycepin production by submerged cultivation of C. militaris. For this experiment, mycelial cultivation was performed in a shaking incubator at 24°C, 100 RPM for 5 days and the medium was sabouraud dextrose broth (pH 5.6). The red, green and blue were used for the LED and dark culture and fluorescent lamp were used as the control. This results, C. militaris showed the highest mycelial weight when green light was irradiated on the other hand, when irradiated with blue light, the content of cordycepin is about 4 times higher than that of fluorescent lamp in the cultures of C. militaris. In addition, the highest content of cordycepin was observed when irradiated for 6 h/day for 3 days. Interestingly, mycelial weight and cordycepin content were inversely related. The information obtained is considered fundamental and useful to the development of C. militaris cultivation process for efficient production of cordycepin on a large scale.