SBIR Phase I: Microbial Fermentation Bioprocess to Produce and Extract Platform Chemicals from the Dairy Industry Acid Whey Waste Stream.

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is the commercialization of a fermentation bioprocess that can bring significant benefits for the dairy industry - called the WheyAway system. By initially addressing the problem of handling acid whey, a waste stream generated by all Greek yogurt and cottage cheese producers - the WheyAway can convert the cost of waste handling into a revenue by producing valuable bio-oil platform chemicals. The WheyAway can economically convert the acid whey waste stream to bio-oil on-site, allowing our customers to effectively install biorefineries at each of their plants. In comparison to anaerobic digestion, the WheyAway system can provide several multiples greater economic value. These bio-oils can be used as biofuel feedstocks, animal feed additives, and specialty chemicals. Converting acid whey yields a significant market opportunity with projected impact that could simultaneously offset ~435,000 gallons of diesel used to truck this waste off-site and eliminate ~18,000 tons of greenhouse gases from being emitted to the atmosphere. In the future, this bioprocess can be tuned to address other dairy processing streams, allowing the WheyAway to provide value to stakeholders across the entire dairy production value chain. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to scale-up and optimize a novel fermentation bioprocess called the WheyAway system, and can economically convert acid whey waste into valuable platform chemicals, to provide value to Greek yogurt and cottage cheese producers. Plan is to scale to maximize bio-oil production and conversion efficiency through system optimization. A key focus will be to lower the capital cost for the extraction process. Through the tasks proposed for this SBIR, objectives to scale to a 5x larger reactor, lower operating expense by 20%, and lower the capital cost of the currently expensive bio-oil extraction process by 10x. Additionally, potential to convert other dairy process streams, such as sweet whey, will be evaluated, which could unlock larger opportunities in the dairy production value chain. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.