Sustainable production of biopolymers from insects for customised applications: process scaleup

Entoplast Ltd is producing valuable biopolymers (chitin/chitosan) that are extracted from insects (the Black Soldier Fly) and are capable of reprocessing large quantities of organic waste. Entoplast has partnered with academic team at Teesside University to support the process scale-up by developing process simulation and life cycle assessment (LCA) to determine how the scale-up process will affect biopolymer production. The LCA will determine the carbon footprint of the process at scale.

The project is designed to scale up an existing laboratory-scale process for chitin and chitosan extraction from black soldier fly via deep eutectic solvents. The properties of the project products, biopolymers, are tailored to the customers' specifications and applications by customising the process conditions. The project is designed for incremental scaleup of the process while investigating the validity of the customised process conditions to meet the customer's product specifications.

Chitin/chitosan are non-toxic, biodegradable, and biocompatible biopolymers. Their advantages are that they can be processed into different forms such as membranes, sponges, gels, scaffolds, and microparticles for a variety of biomedical applications such as drug delivery, gene therapy, tissue engineering and wound healing.

Currently, 95% of chitin/chitosan is sourced from shellfish and is highly conditional on the fishery industry waste. Therefore, the chitin/chitosan global arket is mostly dependent on crustaceans where production from this source uses strong acid to demineralise, and is poorly efficient in terms of volumes, costs and quality of output.

The project is designed to develop a net zero process for the regeneration of organic waste (OW) into high-value products whilst eliminating the use and disposal of harmful acids by using natural extraction fluids promoting green and recyclable methods. Despite those limitations, the global market is valued at £1.2B, increasing to £3.7B by the end of the decade. Since chitin is a major component of the insect cuticle, Entoplast process is based on sourcing chitin/chitosan from the Black Soldier Fly (BSF). This fly species was chosen because its larvae grow feeding massive quantities of a wide variety of organic waste, transforming it into biomass.

Given the almost unlimited availability of organic waste, as a system input, our process is highly scalable, it is aligned with circular economy concepts and can be realized at low costs. Previous experiments proved that Entoplast's chemical extraction system yields, from the BSF, higher masses than the current crustacean sources. Entoplast proved the extraction of chitin from insect sources by the novel, sustainable chemical approach obtaining an extraordinary chitin/chitosan yield compared with the yield from crustaceans using conventional acids.

The ultimate vision is to establish a net-zero process that adeptly transforms organic waste into these invaluable biopolymers. By eschewing the traditional use of detrimental acids, our pioneering methods integrate green, natural fluids that embody innovation fostering a sustainable, scalable and eco-friendly, and efficient approach to waste management and resource utilisation.

Chitin, Chitosan, NetZero, Biopolymers, Bioplastics, Organic waste, Deep eutectic solvents