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Aerobic bioreactor scale-up: Modeling and

economics

Conference Paper · May 2015

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 Aerobic Bioreactor Scale-up:
Modeling and Economics
Dave Humbird, DWH Process Consulting, Denver, Colorado
Ryan Davis, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado
5 May 2015

1 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Introductions

DWH Process Consulting NREL Biorefinery Analysis Group

• Private chemical engineering consultant • Develops and maintains techno-

economic models of proposed biofuels
• Aspen Engineering software specialist
processes
• Support smaller companies, limited staff
• Production costs for these hypothetical
• EPC liaison for FEED, FEL-1s processes helps direct DOE research

• Industries supported include • Aspen Plus is a primary tool

– Biofuels/chemicals
– Synthetic biology startups
– Fermented and distilled beverage

2 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Bioreactor scale-up for biofuels

• If advanced microbial biofuels are to measurably displace fossil fuels in the near term, they
will have to operate at levels of efficiency, margin, and scale unprecedented in the current
biotech industry.
– The challenge of attaining fuel-class production scales comes down to cost-effective delivery of oxygen

• Conceptual design challenges

– What is the practical size limit for aerated bioreactors?
– What economies of scale can we realize with large bioreactors?
– How do we estimate operating cost as function of reactor size and oxygen consumption?

• We will explore economies of scale in oxygen delivery for aerobic bioprocessing through
– Reactor cost estimates in Aspen Capital Cost Estimator (ACCE)
– Power-optimized process simulations in Aspen Plus
– Monte Carlo sensitivity analyses using Aspen Plus integrated with Oracle Crystal Ball

3 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Bioreactor scale-up for biofuels
How hard could it be?
Anaerobic (ethanol)

2 x 5 gal
2 x 106 gal
200,000 X

4 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Bioreactor scale-up for biofuels
How hard could it be?
Aerobic (just about everything else)

Production • Impossible to maintain geometric

Aerated STRs
similarity for all important parameters
(Stirred-tank reactor)
– Volume vs diameter (gas velocity)
– Reactor diameter vs impeller diameter
Pilot
– Impeller speed (shear)

• Scale-up tactics
– Hydrodynamic similarity (constant Re)
Bench – Constant agitation P/V
– Constant impeller tip speed
– Constant O2 mass transfer rate
to 20 L to 20,000 L to 200,000 L

5 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Aerobic bioreactor scale-up
Scale-up for constant O2 mass transfer
Full reactor system • Many microbial biofuel replacements need a lot of oxygen
Fatty acids, e.g. palmitate:
Vent
Bioreactor
4 C6H12O6 + O2  C16H32O2 + 8 CO2 + 8H2O (0.35 kg O2/kg)
Substrate Hydrocarbons, e.g. farnesene:
Sparger
Fermentation
Chiller
4.5 C6H12O6 + 6 O2  C15H24 + 12 CO2 + 15 H2O (0.94 kg O2/kg)
Air
Air Cooler
• We can generalize the design wrt cost of oxygen delivery
Air Compressor Circulation Pump

Product
• Scale-up for constant mass transfer coefficient kLa
Oxygen uptake rate = Oxygen transfer rate
Cooling Tower Chilled Water System
OUR = OTR = kLa (C* - CL)
aeration, agitation, kLa = f (aeration, agitation)
forced-circulation cooling,
chiller loop
6 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Modeling the operating cost of oxygen delivery
Volume and OTR dependency
• Aspen Plus used to simulate single bioreactors of Agitator power dissipated as heat

various volumes at steady state

• Air supplied to a reactor block to consume a 200, 500, 1000 m3

ΔCO2
OUR=6*GLUFEED/Vol
steady glucose feed (OUR, mmol O2/L-h)
C6H12O6 + 6 O2  6 CO2 + 6 H2O Design-spec:
kLa=f(WAGIT,FERMAIR)
OTR=kLa(ΔCO2)=OUR

• Mass transfer coefficient (kLa) from published Chiller duty

expressed as power
correlation*
kLa [s-1] = 0.002 (us [m/s])0.2 (P/V [W/m3])0.7
OTR = kLa (ΔCO2)

• Aeration varied to make OTR=OUR

• Agitation varied by optimization routine to

Optimization:
minimize total power Minimize WTOTAL
us: superficial gas velocity; P/V: power/volume *Van’t Riet, Ind. Eng. Chem. Processes Des. Dev. 18:357 (1979)

7 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Modeling the operating cost of oxygen delivery
kWh/kg O2
2.5
• Minimum power required to deliver a kg
of O2 does not change significantly with
2.0
vessel size or OUR

• 2 kWh/kg O2 good rule of thumb 1.5

kWh/kg O2
• Any beneficial economies of scale
200 m3
realized at larger vessel sizes are more 1.0

strongly a result of reduced capital costs 500 m3

0.5
1000 m3

0.0
0 50 100 150
OUR mmol O2/L-h

8 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Reactor cost estimation
Vessel size selection
Sized for 80% operating level
and 2:1 ungassed liquid H/D • 200 m3 : standard, readily purchasable reactor

• 500 m3 : “World’s biggest” class of reactor

• 1,000 m3 : Hypothetically large reactor

• All require some field fabrication

• Capital quotes solicited through EPC

– EPC develops detailed schematics with tank and
48'
agitator dimensions, plus nozzle sizes and number
Trailer
– EPC approaches undisclosed reactor vendor for costs
– Vendor’s experience with large reactors is unknown

1,000 m3 500 m3 200 m3

9 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reactor cost estimation
Vendor quotes exhibit questionable scaling
Vendor
Capex, $K Vessel Agitator Total
200 m3 $356 $230 $586
500 m3 $456 $412 $868
1,000 m3 $584 $629 $1,213

4.0

3.5

Cost ratio
3.0

2.5
Vendor bare vessel
2.0 y = x0.3
1.5

1.0
3 3 3 1 2 3 4 5
1,000 m 500 m 200 m Volume ratio

10 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Reactor cost estimation
ACCE-generated costs with same dimensions scale better
Vendor ACCE
Capex, $K Vessel Agitator Total Vessel Agitator Total
200 m3 $356 $230 $586 $385 $213 $598
500 m3 $456 $412 $868 $837 $363 $1,200
1,000 m3 $584 $629 $1,213 $1,394 $543 $1,938

4.0
ACCE bare vessel
3.5 y = x0.8

Cost ratio
3.0

2.5
Vendor bare vessel
2.0 y = x0.3
1.5

1.0
3 3 3 1 2 3 4 5
1,000 m 500 m 200 m Volume ratio

11 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Reactor cost estimation
ACCE captures cost increase with agitator power

$4.0MM
1000 m3
$3.5MM

ACCE Bioreactor Cost (Installed)

$3.0MM
500 m3
$2.5MM

$2.0MM 200 m3

$1.5MM

$1.0MM

$0.5MM

$0.0MM
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
1,000 m3 500 m3 200 m3 Agitator Power (hp)

12 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Modeling the operating cost of oxygen delivery
$/kg O2
• Aggregate capital and operating cost $0.90

– Reactor cost selected from table of discrete powers $0.80

– CAPEX for compressor, pump, heat exchangers, chiller 200 m3
computed in ACCE (small compared to reactor) $0.70

– Converted with 13% annual capital charge 500 m3

$0.60
– OPEX = minimized power from simulation at
1000 m3
$0.06/kWh plus 6% maintenance $0.50

$/kg O2
$0.40 200 m3
• Significant advantage scaling from 200 to 500 m3 50 mmol/L-h
$0.30 $0.29/kg O2
• Smaller advantage scaling from 500 to 1,000 m3
$0.20
• Likely no incentive to make a bioreactor larger
than 1,000 m3 $0.10

– Economy of scale to be gained would not pay for the $0.00

development of such a large unit 0 50 100 150
OUR mmol O2/L-h

13 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Conclusions from the conceptual design study
• Minimum total power to deliver a kg of O2
is fairly independent of vessel size
• Vendor capital quotes for hypothetically
large reactors scale too low; ACCE
estimates are more believable
– Standard size costs match remarkably well
– ACCE scales more rationally
– ACCE provides a critical check of the
external quotes
• Capital economy of scale for aerated
STRs appears to diminish above 1,000 m3
14 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.
• How sensitive are our conclusions to our
reactor design assumptions?
• kLa [s-1] = A (us [m/s])α (P/V [W/m3])β
– A mostly determined by units in brackets
– Exponents vary with equipment and biology
– Review paper* gives ranges for exponents
0.2 ≤ α ≤ 0.7
0.4 ≤ β ≤ 1.0
• Let’s perform a sensitivity analysis
*Garcia-Ochoa and Gomez, Biotechnol. Adv. 27:153 (2009)
Automated Aspen Plus Monte Carlo sensitivity study
with Oracle Crystal Ball
VBA
• Monte Carlo plugin for Excel
Write input to
open Aspen
Plus simulation
• Independent cells varied,
dependent cells tracked

• Provides VBA hooks for

Reinitialize &
run simulation complex calculations

• Can be integrated with OLE

interface to Aspen Plus
Write result to
tracked cell • Result distribution only as
meaningful as input distribution

15 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated Aspen Plus Monte Carlo sensitivity study
Applications
• Originally written to study biorefinery COP
sensitivity to variability in biomass feedstock
composition

• Later studied sensitivity of COP to

fundamental conversion assumptions
– Lab measurement uncertainty expressed as
conversion uncertainty through error propagation

Vicari et al., Biotechnology for Biofuels. 5:23 (2012)

16 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

 Sensitivity of O2 delivery cost to the kLa correlation
Monte Carlo results
O2 Delivery Cost
• 200 m3,
50 mmol/L-h, $0.29/kg O2 with base
exponents
• Assume nothing: uniform distribution for α and β
– kLa [s-1] = A (us [m/s])α (P/V [W/m3])β

• 10,000 trials (~12 hours)

• Remember: power minimization still active!
• Most likely cost of O2 delivery is same as
predicted earlier ($0.29/kg)
• Optimization routine acts as a forcing function
– kLa (the function) is very sensitive to exponents
kLa (the value) is constant
– With minimized power, cost of O2 delivery is not
17 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Sensitivity of O2 delivery cost to the kLa correlation
Monte Carlo results
• Three major contributors to power / cost
– Compressor + Reactor + Heat Removal
– Each roughly same magnitude

• Heat removal cost is narrow (heat of reaction

is fixed)

• Reactor cost is bounded by max motor size

• Compression costs provide the tail

• Good use of optimization routine

18 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Concluding Remarks

• In aerobic bioprocessing, the challenge of how to attain fuel-class production scales

comes down to cost-effective delivery of oxygen to a culture.

• In the conceptual design phase, Aspen Plus optimization routines can be used effectively
to determine minimum power demand and minimum operating cost of oxygen delivery.

• The optimized, minimum cost of oxygen delivery appears fairly insensitive to the specific
design equation (kLa correlation) used.

• For conceptual scale-up to hypothetically large equipment, cost estimates from ACCE are
as good as or better than vendor quotes when the vendor is outside of their comfort zone.

19 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

Thank You

Acknowledgments Speaker info

• Jim McMillan Dave Humbird, PhD, PE

• Chris Scarlata DWH Process Consulting LLC

• Abhijit Dutta Denver, Colorado

• DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office dave@dwhpc.com

20 © 2015 Aspen Technology, Inc. All rights reserved.

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