LIGNOLIPP - From LIGNOcellulose sugars to high-value LIPids and bioPolymers in a single fermentation process

Due to its compositional variety, lignocellulosic biomass is a promising renewable feedstock for the production of different chemicals. The production of microbial lipids from lignocellulose sugars has attracted a lot of attention during the last five years. Microbial lipids are produced by oleaginous fungi which, under nutrient-limited conditions, are able to accumulate up to 80% of lipids per dry biomass. Fatty acid profiles of fungal lipids are very similar to the essential fatty acids in plant oils or they can be similar to highly valuable fish oil. Microbial lipids are a promising feedstock of high-value lipids for food, feed and chemical industry as well as low-value lipids for biodiesel industry. Currently, the process of microbial lipid production is still not competitive with the agricultural production of vegetable oils, which have a significantly lower market price. LIGNOLIPP hypothesis is that the production of microbial lipids from lignocellulose sugars can become economically feasible if a process allowing the co-production of chitin and chitosan. NMBU identified that several Zygomycetes fungi from genera Mucor, Amylomyces, Cunninghamella, Mortierella, Umbelopsis and Lichtheimia are identified as promissing microbial cell factories for the co-production of chitin/chitosan and lipids. The biomass of these fungi was analysed by WWU and the obtained results showed that it contains up to 15% of chitin/chitosan. Optimization of the cultivation conditions performed by NMBU showed that pH, phosphorus and metal ions availability is a key parameter in triggering chitin/chitosan production. Vibrational spectroscopy techniques have been applied in monitoring fungal fermentations with the special focus on lipid and chitin/chitosan predicitons.

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The LIGNOLIPP project will develop a completely new and unique value chain for the valorization of sugar-rich lignocellulose hydrolysates, deriving two products from a single fermentation process. LIGNOLIPP aims at combining the expertise of Norwegian and German academic and industrial partners in the field of fungal lipids and chitin/chitosan for utilizing the unique potential of oleaginous Zygomycetes fungi in order to develop a single fermentation process for co-production of high-value lipids and chitin/chitosan biopolymers from sugar-rich lignocellulose hydrolysates originating from forestry waste streams. The LIGNOLIPP project has a set of targeted technological and strategic business objectives that relate to the process development and the evaluation of the economic viability and sustainability of the suggested process, respectively. LIGNOLIPP will be realized by the close collaboration between the research partners – Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE), companies – Biosentrum and Borregaard from Norway and research partner University of Muenster (WWU) and the company Bex-Biotec from Germany.