{
  "abstract": "Fruit and vegetable (FV) waste represents an underutilized organic stream in Europe, yet its soluble sugar fraction remains poorly exploited as a bioprocess feedstock. Recombinant enzyme production from biowaste is often bottlenecked by heterogeneous substrate composition, low fermentable sugar titres, and uncertain process economics. This study evaluates the techno-economic feasibility of recombinant Candida rugosa lipase type 1 (CRL1) production in Pichia pastoris (Komagataella phaffii) under the constitutive glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase promoter pGAP across three carbon sources: commercial glucose (Scenario A), mechanically pressed fruit and vegetable juice (Scenario B), and an enzymatically hydrolysed, nanofiltered fruit and vegetablesugar stream (Scenario C). Bench-scale fermentation kinetics were integrated into 24 SuperPro Designer models across four scales (1 to 5000 L nominal vessel capacity; 0.75 to 3750 L working volume) under batch and continuous chemostat (\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\:D=0.05 {\\mathrm{h}}^{-1}$$\\end{document}) modes. Interpreted through the Titre, Rate, and Yield (TRY) framework, continuous operation on glucose increased volumetric CRL1 productivity 12.6-fold over batch (0.084 vs. 0.06 U L−1 h−1. Conversely, continuous operation on the hydrolysed stream did not improve productivity over batch, indicating potential kinetic inhibition from enzymatic pretreatment products or suboptimal dilution rate. At the 5000 L vessel scale under continuous mode, unit production costs were $1186, $36,049, and $3416 \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\:{\\mathrm{kg}}^{-1}$$\\end{document} for Scenarios A, B, and C, respectively, all exceeding the commodity lipase benchmark ($25 \\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\:{\\mathrm{kg}}^{-1}$$\\end{document}). Facility-dependent costs dominated Scenarios A and B (73% and 78% of OPEX), whereas enzyme reagents dominated Scenario C (75%). Sensitivity analysis confirmed that secreted protein titre and downstream recovery efficiency are the primary economic drivers, demonstrating that feedstock acquisition cost is not the binding constraint. Early-stage TEA driven by bench-scale kinetic parameterization provides essential screening prior to pilot-scale investment in biowaste-to-enzyme biorefineries.\n\nGraphical abstract:\n\nSupplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40643-026-01153-x.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.",
    "BiOrbic, Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy, Dublin, Ireland.",
    "Bioprocessing R&D Department, Parque Tecnológico Fuente Álamo, Bionet, Fuente Álamo, Spain.",
    "School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. eoin.casey@ucd.ie.",
    "BiOrbic, Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy, Dublin, Ireland. eoin.casey@ucd.ie."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Ana G Del Hierro",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-9487-8337"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Violine Raynal"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Ruth Ordóñez"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Fuensanta Verdú-Navarro"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3,
        4
      ],
      "name": "Eoin Casey",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6471-7356"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a38z335tnxx68.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1186/s40643-026-01153-x",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13719962",
  "id": "a38z335tnxx68",
  "issns": [
    "2197-4365"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42955152",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Research"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1305|Enzyme Production and Characterization"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7224368312",
  "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13719962?pdf=render",
  "pmcid": "PMC13719962",
  "pmid": "42955152",
  "published": "2026-10-29",
  "publisher": "Springer",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a38z335tnxx68.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-01T00:20:36Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42955152",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42955152"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:23:50Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13719962",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1186/s40643-026-01153-x"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:1305|Enzyme Production and Characterization",
      "subfield": "systems-synthetic"
    }
  ],
  "title": "What drives the cost of biowaste-to-lipase production? Linking titre, rate and yield to techno-economic performance in batch-to-continuous Pichia pastoris fermentation.",
  "title_text": "What drives the cost of biowaste-to-lipase production? Linking titre, rate and yield to techno-economic performance in batch-to-continuous Pichia pastoris fermentation.",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-03T12:20:56Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/a38z335tnxx68",
  "venue": "Bioresources and bioprocessing",
  "versions": []
}