Plant Oils Flagship Project Plant oils as industrial feedstocks

Plant Oils Flagship Project
Plant oils as industrial feedstocks
John Dyer
Sten Stymne
Outline
• Introduction
• Society is heavily dependent on crude oil
• Role of plant oils in the emerging bioeconomy
• Impact of biotechnology
• Breakout session
• Day 1 – Products and targets
• Day 2 – Research required for delivery (10-15 yrs)
Crude oil underpins all aspects of modern society
Petrochemical
industry
Fuel
10%
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Transportation
Industrial sector
Residential/Commercial
Electric utility
90%
Global annual consumption
of crude oil in 2002:
3,800 MMT
Plastics
Synthetic fibers
Synthetic rubber
Detergents
Chemical fertilizers
Crude oil is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons
Bottled gases
Oil refinery
Fractional
distillation
Gasoline
Petrochemical
industry
Alkenes,
aromatics
Petrochemicals
Distilling
tower
Kerosene
“cracking
& reforming”
Raw materials
Diesel oil
Products
Crude oil
>700 degrees F
Lubricants,
waxes, tar, coke
Lessons learned from the crude oil industry
Crude oil
Fuel
Feedstocks
Petrochemistry
• Strong coupling of industries
• Diverse petrochemicals (>4,000)
Raw materials
• Products are low cost, high quality
• Finite resource
Products
Plants are renewable resources
Plants
Biomass
Seeds
(fuel)
(feedstocks for industry)
Green biotechnology
Oils, protein, starch
White
biotechnology
Green chemistry
Bioproducts
Plant Oils Flagship
• Similar to long-chain
hydrocarbons from crude oil
• Renewable sources of raw
materials
• Benefits
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Decrease dependence on crude oil
Environmentally friendly
Novel properties
Increase competitiveness of
agriculture
Current industrial usage of vegetable oils
• Oilseed crops are major agricultural commodities
(>330 MMT in 2003)
• 85% of veg oil used for food; 15% for industry
• Plant oils used for: lubricants, inks, coatings,
plastics, biodiesel
• Plant oils domesticated for food, not industry;
require chemical treatment (contributes to cost and
environmental impact)
The rich diversity of plant seed oils
A single fatty acid may account for 70 – 90% of oil composition
Conjugated
Epoxy
Hydroxy
“Drying oil"
Inks, Dyes
Coatings
Resins
Plasticizers
Adhesives
Nylons
Lubricants
Sealants
Surfactants
Combinations of functional groups!
Waxes
Lubricants
Hydraulic
fluids
The problem
• Plants that produce these oils have poor agronomic traits
• Small seeds
• Low yields
• Limited geographical growing areas
Calendula officinalis
Stokesia laevis
Momordica charantia
Goal of plant biotech community
Isolate genes for fatty
acid biosynthesis
•
Genes
Transfer genes to plants with
improved agronomic traits
Aggressively pursued by industrial, academic, and government scientists
Attempts to produce industrial oils in transgenic plants
Exotic fatty
acid
Type
Source
plant
Ricinoleic
Hydroxy
Ricinus
communis
89
A. thaliana
B. napus
22
16
Vernolic
Epoxy
Vernonia
galamensis
80
A. thaliana
15
Crepenynic
Acetylenic
Crepis
(triple bond) alpina
70
A. thaliana
3
Eleostearic
Conjugated
70
G. max
17
Momordica
charantia
Max % in oil Target plant
Max % in oil
Challenges and goals
• Multiple genes will be required for efficient
synthesis AND accumulation of exotic fatty
acids in host plants. (Metabolic engineering)
• A highly coordinated, integrated research
program is needed (genesis of the Oilseed
Flagship Project)
Breakout session:
From Petrochemicals to Oleochemicals
Day 1
Identification of plant oil targets, traits and
endproducts
1. Chemicals
2. Biodiesel
Important:
The products should replace markets now occupied by
mineral oil products and not just substitute the oil from
one plant species with oil from another plant species.
Everything you can do with mineral oil, you can
also do with plant oil. It is just a matter of costs!!
$17 USD
$88 USD
1998
$72 USD
$78 USD
2006
Current and future markets for plant oil usage
About 15% of total vegetable oils produced (15 million
metric tons annually) are today used in chemical
industry.
Examples:
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Surfactants, soap and detergents
Lubricants
Solvents
Polymers
Paints, Inks Dyes
Chemical feed stocks
Flooring
Cosmetics
Biodiesel
Many others
In all of these areas mineral oil based products are predominant
today but plant oils are competitive in certain applications.
By optimizing the chemical structure of the oil and producing it
more cost-effectively, large portions of the mineral oil based
market can be captured
Breakout session
Day 1: DEFINE GOALS
Chemicals
Which are the best potential markets for increased use of plant oils
and what is needed in terms of chemical structure and
production costs to provide a competitive sustainable
replacement to petrochemicals?
Biodiesel
!
How could the diesel from plant oils be made more
economically than presently?
Higher oil yield per ha of existing crops/lower input costs in
cultivation/new oil crops/converting starch crops into oil crops
!
Higher value of by-products
Novel applications for glycerol and protein cake. E.g. novel, more
valuable proteins in the cake
DAY 2: Research and development needed to underpin the
delivery of the products defined at day 1.
Non-food oilseed platforms
Some oil qualities to be developed might use existing high
yielding oil crops as production systems
Oils with ’exotic’ fatty acids might require an entire nonfood crop platform:
•Domestication of ’wild’ plants with already desired oil quality
•Using and improving a non-food oil crop as vehicle for various oil
qualities (e.g. Crambe, Brassica carinata)
Breakout session: Day 2.
Metabolic constraints
•How to boost the levels of the desired fatty acid
in the oil (goal >60%)
•How to overcome germination problems with
the novel oil qualities
•How to increase the carbon flux into oil
Breakout session: Day 2.
Molecular tools and knowledge base
What do we need in terms of tools and knowledge
to overcome the metabolic constraints?
•Gene discovery
•Model plant studies
•Exotic plant studies
•Metabolic flux control tools
Breakout session: Day 2.
Intellectual Property Issues
”Discoveries yet to come will be extraordinary but won’t happen if people lock
up intellectual property”
Carol Kovac, IBM, General manager for Health Care and Life Science
How to deal with existing IPR to ensure effective commercialisation?
How do we ensure involvement of small and medium size enterprises?
Which areas can be regarded as precompetitive?
! Different levels of openness: Enabling technologies versus end products
! Can we work in an open source pool for major tasks spanning many products?
e.g. Non-food oil crop platform
Breakout session: Day 2
Outcome of the breakout session:
•List of target products and oil qualities identified and prioritized.
•R&D needed to achieve the targets.
•Estimated time frame for obtaining the target products