Purdue University School of Chemical Engineering GRADUATE SEMINAR SERIES Dr. Dehua Liu Tsinghua University, Beijing, China "A Commercial Demonstration of Biorefinery of Lipids: Co-production of Biodiesel and 1,3-propanediol" October 2, 2012 9:00-10:15 a.m. FRNY G140 Reception at 8:30 a.m. in Henson Atrium Abstract: Lipase-catalyzed transesterification from renewable oils for biodiesel production has many advantages over chemical approaches though the latter has been put into the industrialization for biodiesel production. However, the low stability (poor operational life) and the high cost of the lipase have been thought to be the main hurdle to the industrialization of lipase-catalyzed biodiesel production. Tsinghua University has proposed a novel route and the operational life of the immobilized lipase could be improved over 50-fold than traditional enzymatic approaches. This novel route is thought to be very promising for the commercialization of biodiesel production since it would reduce the lipase cost dramatically by significantly improving the stability and the operational life of the lipase. A plant with 20,000 ton/year capacity has been constructed in Hunan, China and it was put into operation on Dec. 8, 2006. As a by-product, glycerol will be yielded at about 10% of biodiesel during the process of biodiesel production. How to convert glycerol has become a common problem which has to be resolved if considering large amount of biodiesel production. Integrated production of 1,3-propanediol (PDO) from glycerol could be a promising way to improve the profit of the whole process during biodiesel production. 1,3-PDO is a valuable chemical material. Fermentation approaches for 1,3-PDO production have drawn more and more attention by considering its advantages over chemical method such as relatively low investment, mild reaction conditions and using renewable sources as the starting materials. Tsinghua University has proposed a novel flexible process for 1,3-PDO production from glycerol or glucose. The purity of final product 1,3-PDO is as good as 99.92%. A facility with capacity of 3,000 tons/year1,3-PDO has been built in Hunan Rivers Bioengineering company, China. Bio: Professor Liu received his Bachelor degree in 1986 and Doctorate degree in 1991 at Tsinghua University, respectively. He worked at State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences as a Postdoctoral from 1991 to 1993, and became professor in 1997. He worked at Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering, Purdue University, USA as visiting professor. From 1999, he has been worked as director of Institute of Applied Chemistry in Tsinghua. His specialized fields are renewable resources and bioenergy, fermentation technology, bioreaction, metabolic engineering, etc. He has published more than 180 papers and applied more than 60 patents, among which 26 patents have been authorized.