FAIR-CT95-1099 Design and Scale-up of a Bioprocess for the Production of Natural Vanillin from Agricultural By-Products

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Agricultural Residues : Agriculture : FAIR Area 2.2 - Bioprocessing : Flavours/Fragrances : Process Engineering

	Type of Project	Shared Cost
	Contract No	FAIR-CT95-1099
	Total Cost	1,627,931 ECU
	EC Contribution	1,049,157 ECU
	Start Date	01/11/1996
	Duration	36 Months

Design and scale-up of a bioprocess for the production of natural vanillin from agricultural by-products

Objectives

Technical Approach

Objectives of the project are the design and scale-up of an industrial biotechnological process for the transformation of agricultural by-products into one of the most important food flavour, high added value natural vanillin. This non-food valorisation, as flavours are considered as additives but not as food, will be realised on the basis of the experience and results obtained at laboratory scale during a previous AIR programme RTD project AIR1-CT92-0026.

Expected Results

The production of natural vanillin by a two-step procedure:

• First a phenolic precursor, ferulic acid, is released from agricultural by-products (sugar beet pulp, wheat and maize bran) using polysaccharide-degrading enzymes and specific ferulic acid esterases, purified and characterised during the previous AIR project.
• This ferulic acid is then directly biotransformed to vanillin by a selected basidiomycete, Pycnoporus cinnabarinus, or by a two step process using first Aspergillus niger to transform the ferulic acid into vanillic acid, then Pycnoporus cinnabarinus to obtain vanillin from vanillic acid.

Because of inhibition of the growth of the fungus by the product, we have to define a continuous process for vanillin extraction during the bioconversion. The complexity of this transformation requires also a very fine control of the process. To be defined is even an analytical tool to prove the origin of the vanillin obtained (SNIF-NMR, isotopic analysis).

The production of vanillin at the end of the project is expected to reach some kg using fermenters of 5 to 50 m³. Economic viability of the process could then be evaluated taking into account the price of vanilla beans and the yield of our process.

Applications

Natural biotechnological vanillin (not from the named material) is currently a non-existent market, but with a high economical potential. It can be roughly estimated at 50-100 tons/year for an utilisation especially in food industries, i.e. high-quality chocolate, ice creams, pastries and all dairy products.

Results To Date

• Selection of enzymes for diferulic acid liberation
• Optimisation of the action of Aspergillus niger on raw materials
• Optimisation of the bioconversion by Pycnoporus

Enzymatic step in the production of natural
vanillin from agricultural by-products

Bioconversion step in the production of natural
vanillin from agricultural by-products

Contacts

Coordinator

• Dr Benoît COLONNA CECCALDI / Centre de Recherches Pernod-Ricard FRANCE

Participant

• Dr J-F THIBAULT / INRA Nantes Unité de Recherche sur les Polysaccharides / FRANCE
• Marcel ASTHER / INRA, Lab. de Biotechnologie des Champignons Filamenteux / FRANCE
• Christine HILL / Institute of Food Research Norwich Laboratory / UNITED KINGDOM
• Dr G FRARE / Recordati Industria Chimica e Farmaceutica SPA / ITALY
• Prof G BASTIN / Universite Catholique de Louvain Centre for Systems Engineering / BELGIUM
• Dr Annele HATAKKA / University of Helsinki Dept of Applied Chemistry and Microbio / FINLAND

Subcontractor

• Régis DE BAYNAST / ARD FRANCE