Energy-efficient biomass processing with pulsed electric fields for bioeconomy and sustainable development

Abstract

Fossil resources-free sustainable development can be achieved through a transition to bioeconomy, an economy based on sustainable biomass-derived food, feed, chemicals, materials, and fuels. However, the transition to bioeconomy requires development of new energy-efficient technologies and processes to manipulate biomass feed stocks and their conversion into useful products, a collective term for which is biorefinery. One of the technological platforms that will enable various pathways of biomass conversion is based on pulsed electric fields applications (PEF). Energy efficiency of PEF treatment is achieved by specific increase of cell membrane permeability, a phenomenon known as membrane electroporation. Here, we review the opportunities that PEF and electroporation provide for the development of sustainable biorefineries. We describe the use of PEF treatment in biomass engineering, drying, deconstruction, extraction of phytochemicals, improvement of fermentations, and biogas production. These applications show the potential of PEF and consequent membrane electroporation to enable the bioeconomy and sustainable development.

Membrane permeabilization of mammalian cells using bursts of high magnetic field pulses

“…Flexible control of the cell membrane permeability to impermeable molecules by means of electroporation offers a vast array of applications, including, but not limited to, biotechnology, food processing and medicine (Mahnič-Kalamiza, Vorobiev & Miklavčič, 2014; Yarmush et al, 2014; Kotnik et al, 2015; Golberg et al, 2016b). Current state of the art of the biomedical electroporation involves application of various electrode array configurations (Campana et al, 2016b; Ongaro et al, 2016; Szczurkowska et al, 2016) for both invasive (i.e., tissue ablation Reberšek et al, 2014; Golberg et al, 2016a; Klein et al, 2016) and non-invasive (i.e., transdermal) electroporation applications (Blagus et al, 2013; Zorec et al, 2013; Becker et al, 2014; Chen et al, 2015).…”

Limitations, challenges, and solution approaches in grid‐connected renewable energy systems

“…Most of the studies reveal that biofuel emits comparatively fewer GHG than conventional fuels, but some studies show that biofuel has a more negative impact on climate change . The efficiency of biomass electricity plant is around 20% . Figure shows bioenergy produced in different regions of the world for the period 2008‐2018.…”

“…72 The efficiency of biomass electricity plant is around 20%. 73 Figure 7 shows bioenergy produced in different regions of the world for the period 2008-2018. Overall global bioenergy trend is increasing slowly; however, in some of the areas, bioenergy production is reduced than in previous years.…”

Innovative Alternative Technologies to Extract Carotenoids from Microalgae and Seaweeds

“…In recent years, there has been an emerging interest in the use of electrotechnologies, such as PEF, MEF, and HVED as a non-thermal, green extraction techniques for targeting intracellular compounds from plant or biosuspensions [47,48,49,50]. As illustrated in Figure 2, although each of these electrotechnologies has its own mode of treatment and mechanism of delivering electrical current through the processed biomaterial, they all induce a certain degree of cell disintegration allowing for the selective extraction of intracellular compounds.…”