Cost impact of hexose-to-pentose sugar ratios for biomanufacturing

Central to the long-term vision for biomanufacturing is the ability to deconstruct plant cell walls to sugars that microbes can convert to products. Aside from glucose, the most abundant sugar in biomass is xylose, a pentose sugar. Industrially relevant microbes have been engineered to co-ferment xylose and glucose. Most nth plant technoeconomic analyses (TEAs) assume similar consumption rates and product yields for both sugars, but in reality, xylose is consumed more slowly. Feedstocks can be selected, or engineered, to alter the glucan-to-xylan ratio (GXR) but no TEAs have quantified the impact of this strategy systematically. This study explores the cost impacts of varying the glucan-to-xylan ratio (GXR) from 1.9 to 6.7 for co-fermenting glucose and xylose to ethanol and bisabolene. The minimum selling prices (MSPs) for both products decrease as the GXR increases, with the largest reductions at shorter residence times. For instance, with an increase in GXR from 1.9 to 6.7, ethanol’s MSP drops by 16 %, 5 %, and 3 % at 24, 72, and 144 h, respectively, while bisabolene’s MSP declines by 23 %, 20 %, and 15 % at 24, 72, and 120 h. Particularly for early-stage commercialization, the results suggest that altering or selecting for feedstocks with higher GXR can minimize capital costs by reducing optimal residence times. Capital-constrained biorefineries operating with shorter residence times can justify paying up to 1.5X to 2X the price for feedstocks with a higher GXR, based on the expected improvements in their product yield and overall process economics.