Plant Oil To Eliminate Fossil Fuels In Chemicals?
14 November 2008 According to ICON, biological materials such as plant oils are the only viable options for renewable production of the carbon skeletons used in petrochemicals. The four year ICON initiative will use the latest in genetic engineering to develop high-yielding sustainable oil crops that can produce the right oils. Twenty-three partners – including Bayer CropScience, which represents the primary route for exploitation of the new lipids – from 11 countries over four years will attempt to modify new non-food oilseed crops from the plants Crambe abyssinica and Brassica carinata, switching them from producing triglycerides to making wax esters, which are resistant to decomposition at high temperatures and pressures. They will also add in chemical groups to lower the wax esters melting point “without decreasing oxidation stability,” says Stymne.
Continues Stymne: “It is not unlikely that we should, in a time span of approximately 10-15 years, have wax ester qualities that could replace about 20% of the fossil based lubricants, which would mean 10 million tons of oil which would require about 10 million hectares of modified oil crops.”
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