Continuous Biomanufacturing of High-Value Products from Food Waste 

Members: Capra Biosciences and Virginia Tech

Project dates: 2025 – present

Capra Biosciences, Inc. and Virginia Tech are collaborating to advance biomanufacturing of lubricants from food waste streams. This technology has the potential to provide a more secure and locally available domestic supply chain of DoD-relevant lubricants. Although lubricants are integral to the operation of nearly every piece of equipment in use by the American warfighter today, their manufacture is increasingly vulnerable to global supply chain risks. 

Capra’s unique approach to biomanufacturing leverages its solvent-tolerant organism with flexible metabolism along with its proprietary extraction technologies in a continuous flow bioreactor. This modular design enables distributed manufacturing from locally sourced waste-based feedstocks, significantly reducing capital costs compared to traditional chemical manufacturing.

By developing bioreactors capable of distributed chemical manufacturing using locally sourced carbon feedstocks, Capra aims to build a more resilient supply chain and facilitate global point-of-need manufacturing. This will help to avoid current global transit bottlenecks, improve U.S. autonomy and defense. However, realizing this vision requires advancement in techniques for valorization of waste streams and integration these waste streams directly into a biomanufacturing process.

Through this partnership, Capra and Virginia Tech will advance the valorization of food waste via arrested anaerobic digestion (AAD). Virginia Tech and Capra Biosciences will design and build a novel AAD system to produce biomanufacturing feedstocks for direct use. Capra Biosciences will optimize its bioreactor platform for the economical production of commercial lubricants from the resulting feedstocks. This approach will overcome several of the major barriers preventing widespread adoption of biomanufacturing.

Ultimately, Capra expects to demonstrate an automated bioreactor system capable of continuous operation with food waste as a feedstock.

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