Development of an economically competitive Trichoderma-based platform for enzyme production: Bioprocess optimization, pilot plant scale-up, techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment.

Despite decades of research and industrial applications of Trichoderma reesei, the development of industrially relevant strains for enzyme production including a low-cost and scalable bioprocess remains elusive. Herein, bioprocess optimization, pilot plant scale-up, techno-economic analysis and life-cycle assessment for enzyme production by an engineered T. reesei strain are reported. The developed bioprocess increased in ∼ 2-fold protein productivity (0.39 g.L ^-1 .h ^-1 ) and 1.6-fold FPase activity (196 FPU.L ^-1 .h ^-1 ), reducing the fermentation in 4 days. Cultivation in a 65-L pilot plant bioreactor resulted in 54 g.L ^-1 protein in 7 days, highlighting the robustness and scalability of this bioprocess. Techno-economic analysis indicates an enzyme cost of ∼ 3.2 USD.kg ^-1 , which is below to the target proposed (4.24 USD.kg ^-1 ) in the NREL/TP-5100-47764 report, while life-cycle assessment shows a carbon footprint reduction of approximately 50% compared to a typical commercial enzyme. This study provides the fundamental knowledge for the design of economically competitive Trichoderma technologies for industrial use.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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