76
J. L. Shamshina and R. D. Rogers
4.3.2 Baby Steps: Laboratory Demonstration Pilot Unit
(Alabama Innovation Grant)
Seeking funding to scale up chitin production, we turned our attention to the Alabama
Department of Commerce’s “Accelerate Alabama” Program, particularly to the
Alabama Innovation Fund (AIF) that was established “to maximize the use of the
State’s economic development resources by leveraging annual research and development expenditures by public institutions and generate high technology resources
which can be used to support economic development activities” [73].
The AIF Fund mainly supported research collaborations among universities and
industries working on research that could be economically beneficial to the state.
If chitin extraction at scale was successful, there would be new and better business options for the seafood industries by utilizing shrimp shells, an industrial
waste product. A collaboration was established with the Gulf Coast Agricultural
and Seafood Cooperative [74] in Bayou La Batre, AL. They had built a seafood
waste drying/pulverizing facility with the support of the Alabama Farmers Market
Authority. The facility collects crustacean biomass waste from resident fishermen and
biomass-handling plants that are then pressed for protein removal, passed through
a fluidized bed dryer for dewatering, and shredded before bagging. At maximum
capacity, the plant can process up to 10 tons of shrimp shells a day into sterilized,
dry chitin-containing material. Finding uses for this waste material could save the
seafood industry of Alabama hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in waste disposal costs as well as opportunities for new jobs as the shrimp shells can be converted
into value-added products.
In 2012, an Alabama Innovation Fund (AIF) grant was given to The University
of Alabama researchers and startup company 525 Solutions, Inc. to build a Laboratory Demonstration Pilot Unit (LDPU) that would enable scaling up the process of
extracting chitin from the bench scale to a prototype scale needed for the manufacture
of chitin-based products. The Department of Commerce award was part of a more
complex project that included research and development, a business plan and market
development, product demonstration, and prototype construction. The project was
divided into several major phases: (1) design and development of a continuous process for chitin extraction, (2) scale-up of the process, (3) construction of a LDPU,
(4) R&D of new chitin-based materials and new product-development technologies,
and (5) demonstration of new products to provide higher value to the seafood wastes.
Under this Alabama Department of Commerce award, Rogers’ group developed
a prototype capable of the continuous processing of shellfish waste. The LDPU
(Fig. 4.2) included a closed-loop where biomass and ionic liquid could be cycled
through until the dissolution was complete. This provided excellent control over
the heating rates of the solution. The unit consisted of a 3 L, glass-jacketed reactor
(Fig. 4.2a) with an overhead mechanical stirrer (Fig. 4.2b) attached to a continuousflow 2 kW microwave (Industrial Microwave Systems, Fig. 4.2c). The pumping was
conducted using a peristaltic pump (Cole-Parmer, Fig. 4.2d).
J. L. Shamshina and R. D. Rogers
4.3.2 Baby Steps: Laboratory Demonstration Pilot Unit
(Alabama Innovation Grant)
Seeking funding to scale up chitin production, we turned our attention to the Alabama
Department of Commerce’s “Accelerate Alabama” Program, particularly to the
Alabama Innovation Fund (AIF) that was established “to maximize the use of the
State’s economic development resources by leveraging annual research and development expenditures by public institutions and generate high technology resources
which can be used to support economic development activities” [73].
The AIF Fund mainly supported research collaborations among universities and
industries working on research that could be economically beneficial to the state.
If chitin extraction at scale was successful, there would be new and better business options for the seafood industries by utilizing shrimp shells, an industrial
waste product. A collaboration was established with the Gulf Coast Agricultural
and Seafood Cooperative [74] in Bayou La Batre, AL. They had built a seafood
waste drying/pulverizing facility with the support of the Alabama Farmers Market
Authority. The facility collects crustacean biomass waste from resident fishermen and
biomass-handling plants that are then pressed for protein removal, passed through
a fluidized bed dryer for dewatering, and shredded before bagging. At maximum
capacity, the plant can process up to 10 tons of shrimp shells a day into sterilized,
dry chitin-containing material. Finding uses for this waste material could save the
seafood industry of Alabama hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in waste disposal costs as well as opportunities for new jobs as the shrimp shells can be converted
into value-added products.
In 2012, an Alabama Innovation Fund (AIF) grant was given to The University
of Alabama researchers and startup company 525 Solutions, Inc. to build a Laboratory Demonstration Pilot Unit (LDPU) that would enable scaling up the process of
extracting chitin from the bench scale to a prototype scale needed for the manufacture
of chitin-based products. The Department of Commerce award was part of a more
complex project that included research and development, a business plan and market
development, product demonstration, and prototype construction. The project was
divided into several major phases: (1) design and development of a continuous process for chitin extraction, (2) scale-up of the process, (3) construction of a LDPU,
(4) R&D of new chitin-based materials and new product-development technologies,
and (5) demonstration of new products to provide higher value to the seafood wastes.
Under this Alabama Department of Commerce award, Rogers’ group developed
a prototype capable of the continuous processing of shellfish waste. The LDPU
(Fig. 4.2) included a closed-loop where biomass and ionic liquid could be cycled
through until the dissolution was complete. This provided excellent control over
the heating rates of the solution. The unit consisted of a 3 L, glass-jacketed reactor
(Fig. 4.2a) with an overhead mechanical stirrer (Fig. 4.2b) attached to a continuousflow 2 kW microwave (Industrial Microwave Systems, Fig. 4.2c). The pumping was
conducted using a peristaltic pump (Cole-Parmer, Fig. 4.2d).