Reducing the amount of process water

A significant cost reduction in the overall process can be achieved by reducing the amount of process water. Pre-treatment and fractionation for the thermochemical production of advanced biofuels aims to produce streams, with a minimal amount of processing, which are suitable for the thermochemical processes. Specifically, we aim to reduce the amount of added water used in pre-treatment to less than 50% of the amount of water present in fresh seaweed. We aim to achieve this through mild chemical treatment, augmented with the insight provided by pre- treatment for fermentation, in order to produce concentrated and sufficiently pure streams which can be chemically converted. We also aim to turn the disadvantage of the high salt content of seaweed biomass into an advantage by using the salt content to hydrolyse the sugars.