BioLEGO — a web-based application for biorefinery design and evaluation of serial biomass fermentation

Abstract

The composition of feedstock biomass and the selection of fermenting microorganisms are critical factors in biorefinery design. Feedstock biomass composition is constrained by local supply materials, but microorganism selection affords considerable flexibility. Once biomass feedstock is identified, biorefinery designers need to select optimal fermenting organisms. While fermentation by microorganism communities can increase the range of digested biomass compounds and can be more resistant to infections, it has intrinsic problems in the context of species competition, process design and modeling — issues related to insufficient process control. Using a serial fermentation approach, we offset some of these issues to allow maximal process control, while benefiting from organism diversity to maximize feedstock conversion rates. Here, we describe BioLEGO, a freely available web-based application that enables computer-assisted a single and two-step multiorganism fermentation process design. BioLEGO is based on a modular modeling approach, enabling the generation of different fermentation configurations consisting of independent organism modules. BioLEGO supports the evaluation of possible biomass-to-product yields for biomass mixes or general media and recommends media changes to increase the process efficacy.