Biotechnology and BAT Seán Moran. Biotechnology and BAT What are BAT? Appropriateness of Applications of Biotechnology to the Chemical Industry Selection

Biotechnology and BAT

Seán Moran

Biotechnology and BAT

• What are BAT?• Appropriateness of Applications of

Biotechnology to the Chemical Industry• Selection Procedures• Sources of Help and Information

Best Available Techniques (BAT)

• This term is defined as 'the most effective and advanced stage in the development of activities and their methods of operation which indicates the practicable suitability of particular techniques for providing the basis for emission limit values designed to prevent, and where that is not practicable, generally to reduce the emissions and the impact on the environment as a whole'.


• This definition implies that BAT not only covers the technology used but also the way in which the installation is operated, to ensure a high level of environmental protection as a whole. BAT takes into account the balance between the costs and environmental benefits (i.e. the greater the environmental damage that can be prevented, the greater the cost for the techniques).


• Where there is a choice, the technique that is best overall will be BAT unless it is not an 'available technique'. There are two key aspects to the availability test:

• a) what is the balance of costs and advantages? This means that a technique may be rejected as BAT if its costs would far outweigh its environmental benefits


• b) can the operator obtain the technique? This does not mean that the technique has to be in general use. It would only need to have been developed or proven as a pilot, provided that the industry could then confidently introduce it. Nor does there need to be a competitive market for it. It does not matter whether the technique is from outside the UK or even the EU.

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture

• Cleaner, cheaper, safer production processes• New products• New feedstocks• Cost-effective environmental compliance

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture

• In Process• Environmental• Monitoring

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture: In Process

• The use of biotechnology in chemicals’ manufacture is not new and a large number of well-established processes are now operated. Examples of larger-scale industrial biocatalytic processes include the production of glucose from starch and high fructose syrup from glucose, the manufacture of citric acid by fermentation, the production of a number of amino acids

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture : In Process

• Many of the largest commercial processes are for ingredients for food products but increasingly other sectors of the chemical industry are realising the benefits that biological catalysis can provide for both large scale and smaller scale production.


• The existing and potential in-process applications of biotechnology in the chemicals industry include:– biotransformations to introduce chirality;– biotransformations to change or introduce

selective functionality;– fermentation for the cost effective

production of a range of chemicals;


• Biological processes offer the advantage of being operated under mild conditions of temperature and pressure, and with high selectivity leading to fewer by-products. This has provided opportunities to make compounds that are not readily made by conventional chemical synthetic routes or to replace existing manufacturing processes by easier routes with fewer steps and potentially lower environmental impact.


• Biotechnology is not the solution to all the problems of chemicals manufacturing. It is, however, one of the key enabling tools in the technology portfolio. Companies that do not have capabilities in biotransformations risk being excluded from some of the higher value segments of the market.

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture: Example 1

• Ciba Specialty Chemicals Water and Paper Treatment Segment– manufactures a range of polymers based

on acrylamide and acrylic acid for use as purification agents in water treatment and many other applications.

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture : Example 1

– The conventional, in-house method for producing acrylic acid was a hazardous, multi-step, energy-intensive process with high acrylonitrile concentrations,high temperatures, toxic vapour emissions and substantial amounts of waste.


– The Company has developed a biotransformation route with many benefits, including:

– a simple, single-step process– a cost-effective process giving a good quality

product– operation at ambient temperature and atmospheric

pressure– low acrylonitrile concentrations throughout

manufacture– few by-products– almost quantitative atom efficiency.


– The Segment had little in-house experience of biotechnology, but with help from the Government’s LINK Biochemical Engineering Programme and staff from a nearby university, it undertook a study of alternative bioprocesses. A species of the microorganism Rhodococcus was identified, which contained an enzyme that could convert acrylonitrile directly to acrylic acid with an efficiency greater than any previously reported enzyme. The Company has patented the biotransformation and is seeking to license the technology.

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture: Environmental

• Although cleaner technology and waste minimisation are the favoured approaches to reduce the environmental impact of operations in the chemicals industry, a need will remain for the treatment of wastes and for the remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater.

Biotechnology in chemicals manufacture : Environmental

• There are a number of bioprocess technologies available, which offer solutions to some of the problems typical of the sector and which compete economically with non-biological methods.


• For companies which operate on sites with a long history of chemical activity, contamination of the soil and groundwater is an ever-present possibility. The Environment Agency and the water companies treat aquifer pollution very seriously and can take legal action against companies that pollute aquifers.


• Increasingly, banks and other funding institutions are enquiring specifically about the risks from contaminated land before agreeing new loans and financing arrangements. The choice of technology for remediating any contaminated site will depend on the specific contamination and the site conditions.


• Bioremediation is one of the many technologies for treating contaminated soil and groundwater and involves the use of any bioprocess to remove the contamination or render it harmless.


• Bioremediation of soil may be carried out in-situ without excavation, or contaminated soil may be excavated prior to ex-situ treatment. Similarly, groundwater may also be treated in-situ or pumped to the surface for treatment in purpose-built bioreactors. The trend in treatment of contaminated land is moving towards more treatment in-situ.


• In the UK bioremediation has been used to clean up the site of a former coke works that was heavily polluted with PAHs. This project showed that bioremediation can be very cost effective, especially when used with risk based assessment, and that the unit costs for biotreatment of contaminated soil can be much lower than offsite disposal to landfill.


• The use of bioremediation is, in principle, favoured by increasingly strict toxic waste regulations, which provide an incentive to develop techniques which are cost effective. However, regulations are sometimes founded in old technology, and may set standards for compliance in a manner which does not take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the bioremediation approach.


• Air pollution regulators have historically interpreted compliance requirements in terms of BATNEEC. This has now been replaced by BAT, but in practice, there is still a cost/benefit trade off in the choice of environmental clean up techniques, which is set by the interaction of industrial practice with regulatory enforcement.


• Incineration by the industry standard regenerative thermal oxidiser (RTO) technique may be able to reduce the outflow of certain pollutants to lower levels than bioremediation, but if both techniques can nevertheless meet emissions limits there may be other environmental benefits from using bioremediation.


• The use of aerobic and anaerobic biological waste treatment is already well established in the chemical industry. As a result of pressure to control effluent discharges more companies are assessing and installing such units.


• Biological treatment can also be applied to the treatment of odours and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in gaseous effluent streams. The processes used generally rely on contacting the contaminated gas stream with a mixed microbial population in either a solid or liquid media.


British Sugar plc increased the feed rate of sugar beet into its York factory by 30%, from 7,000 tonnes/day to 9,100 tonnes/day. The existing treatment system,which consisted of an aerobic system with discharge to sewer, did not have the capacity to treat the corresponding increase in wastewater. British Sugar decided to investigate alternative biological systems to see if it was possible to treat all wastewater sufficiently to allow discharge directly into a river


• British Sugar decided to install an anaerobic digester upstream of the existing aerobic system, which was retained to remove residual organic waste and ammonia before final discharge to the river. British Sugar opted for anaerobic digestion over aerobic treatment because it offered a number of advantages:


• reduced sludge production from effluent treatment

• the ability to treat higher levels of organic waste

• faster treatment with lower energy costs

• production of biogas as a by-product


British Sugar estimates that it saved over £800,000/year by not having to pay trade effluent charges to discharge the same volume of wastewater to sewer. Burning the biogas generated from the process on site as a boiler fuel has the potential to save a further £73,000/year.


Environmental benefits include less sludge waste, the elimination of odours and the ability to deal with higher organic waste loads. Recycling treated wastewater within the water-handling system also reduced acid levels in the wastewater lagoons, alleviating the need to add lime - reducing costs further.


• Some chemical companies emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or produce odours from their manufacturing processes. There is strict legislation limiting VOC emissions in the UK because of their impact on air quality and, while odours may not be harmful, they can lead to complaints and negative publicity.


• Depending on the composition and volume of a contaminated air stream, biotechnology offers lower capital and operating costs compared with alternative systems such as thermal oxidation. Methods such as bioscrubbing and biotrickling filters degrade VOCs and odorous compounds


BIP Ltd manufactures a wide range of raw materials for the paper, textiles and plastics industries, including speciality resins and amino moulding powders. The Company was faced with increasing legislative pressure to reduce its VOC emissions, most of which were generated during the powder-drying process.


• The Company reviewed the available abatement technologies to find a solution that would meet its requirements (eg low capital and operating costs, low-to-medium levels of VOCs, limited space and minimal need for further treatment of any waste generated during abatement).


• BIP opted for a biotrickling filter system, which uses naturally occurring micro-organisms to continuously degrade the VOCs to carbon dioxide and water. The benefits of using this system at BIP include savings of up to £500,000 on capital costs and up to £100,000/year on running costs compared with incineration techniques and a safer process.


• In addition, BIP was able to install the equipment on the roof of the existing process plant and no further wastewater treatment was required. Maintenance requirements are minimal and odours have been reduced.

Sources of Help and Information

BIOWISE Helpline

0800 432100

Envirowise Helpline

0800 585794

Documents

Biotechnology and BAT Seán Moran. Biotechnology and BAT What are BAT? Appropriateness of Applications of Biotechnology to the Chemical Industry Selection