De-risking fermentation innovations from lab to industry
Fermentation offers major opportunities to produce more sustainable chemicals, materials and proteins. But scaling a fermentation process from lab to industrial scale is complex and risky. That’s where VITO comes in.
VITO acts as an external R&D partner for industry, supporting R&D and technology development. We focus on low-TRL fermentation innovations and help translate them into robust, scalable processes, bridging the gap between lab research and pilot readiness.
Our fermentation services
VITO provides an expert-driven development environment where industrial R&D teams can safely test, challenge and improve fermentation technologies. By combining specialised fermentation expertise with state-of-the-art infrastructure, we enable companies to explore early-phase innovations and high-potential processes without technical or financial risk.
We offer the following services:
- Process intensification to improve fermentation performance, robustness and efficiency under realistic process conditions
- Testing up to TRL 5, generating the technical, operational and economic data needed to prepare for pilot-scale development
- Scale-up support through modelling, digital twins and techno-economic assessments
Why partner with VITO for industrial fermentation?
We design and engineer fermentation processes tailored to your technology, feedstock and development questions, always under realistic, industrially relevant conditions.
Our approach is built around four pillars that are critical for successful industrial fermentation development.
1. Flexible feedstock handling
VITO has extensive experience working with gaseous carbon sources, CO2-derived C1 and C2 intermediates, (second-generation) feedstocksand organic waste or side-streams. Testing facilities are suited to both clean model feedstocks and variable industrial inputs. This enables industrial R&D teams to work with the materials they already have.
2. Process intensification
We apply process intensification strategies to improve fermentation performance, robustness and efficiency. A key focus is addressing gas–liquid mass-transfer limitations and metabolic inhibition, using advanced reactor design and operating strategies to better understand and improve process behaviour as scale increases.
3. Integrated separation
Where relevant, we explore the combination of fermentation with in-process separation. This provides early insight into yield and productivity improvement, product recovery and enrichment, and energy demand, while helping identify constraints that may affect later development stages.
4. Accelerated scale-up
VITO supports accelerated scale-up using state-of-the-art infrastructure and dedicated scale-down capabilities. By reproducing key process conditions at smaller scale, we investigate how fermentation systems behave during scale-up and identify potential risks early.
Experimental work is complemented by Process Analytical Technologies (PAT), digital twins and modelling tools, allowing operating strategies and scale-related effects to be explored both physically and virtually. Together, this enables industrial R&D teams to shorten development time and move efficiently towards pilot readiness.
Our fermentation platforms
VITO offers two fermentation platforms that support circular solutions in the chemical, materials, feed and food sectors.
Gas and C1 fermentation
Turning CO2 and industrial gases into valuable products
VITO supports industrial R&D teams in converting CO2 and C1 gases into valuable products through fermentation. Gas fermentation requires specialised infrastructure. VITO operates a unique high-pressure gas fermenter prototype, enabling development under industrially relevant conditions.
By operating at pressures of up to 10 bar, we overcome gas–liquid mass-transfer limitations and generate realistic insights into performance and scalability.
Hybrid abiotic/biotic concepts are gaining increasing attention, in which CO2 is first converted into liquid C1 or C2 intermediates, such as formate, methanol and acetate, which are then further converted into value-added end products.
We have proven experience with the production of biopolymers such as PHA and platform chemicals such as acetate, ethanol and isobutene, with the use of industrial-grade gas, and both with the direct and indirect (hybrid) conversion of gases.
Suitable for companies that want to:
- valorise CO2 and industrial off-gases
- develop carbon-based chemicals and materials
Microbial conversion of organic feedstock
Turning organic and side-streams into valuable resources
VITO supports industrial R&D teams in converting organic side-streams into valuable products through fermentation. We work with a range of microorganisms and intensified process architectures to handle heterogeneous and variable feedstocks.
Our expertise includes the conversion of organic feedstock into solvents, organic acids, single-cell proteins, biopolymers and more. We apply batch and continuous fermentations and further intensify the processes in membrane bioreactors (MBR) and through implementation of in-situ product recovery (ISPR).
Suitable for companies that want to:
- valorise organic side-streams
- develop bio-based chemicals and materials
How VITO supports your company
You can work with VITO at any stage of your development:
- Screening and feasibility: is your concept scalable?
- Process optimisation: how can yield, throughput, stability and costs be improved?
- Economic and environmental analysis: does it make business sense?
- Project support: from technical guidance to funded collaborations
