Succinic Acid is a crucial precursor for producing over 30 valuable products in the pharmaceutical, food, and agricultural industries. Traditionally sourced from petroleum, the shift to bio-based succinic acid (bio-SA) offers significant environmental benefits, including an estimated reduction of 4.5–5 kg of greenhouse gases for every kilogram produced.
This is where the BIOSUCC project makes a difference!
In collaboration with CETENMA, the project is developing a cost-effective biorefinery model using renewable feedstocks like whey to produce bio-SA.
Despite its potential, bio-SA production faces challenges—primarily high production costs, especially in downstream purification, which accounts for up to 70% of total costs.
At iBB, our team has successfully engineered a new Actinobacillus succinogenes strain through mutagenesis, achieving 3X higher productivity than the wild strain. This marks an important milestone towards reducing upstream costs and enhancing yield, making bio-SA a competitive alternative to its petroleum-based counterpart.
Our work is contributing to the first bio-SA production process using whey valorisation aligning with the growing demand for sustainable solutions.
This project has received funding from Instituto de Fomento de la Región de Murcia and is co-funded by the European Union.
Coordination: CETENMA
People:
CETENMA: Andrés Lara, David Fernández Gutiérrez, Aranzazu Pagan
iBB: Gabriel Monteiro, Sofia Duarte