Project Number: 3620-41000-153-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Aug 10, 2010
End Date: Aug 09, 2015

Objective:
The goal of this project is to create new chemical and biochemical processes for economically producing value-added products from biomass, particularly from plant lipids. Project team members will collaborate within the project, with other Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers, and external partners to reach the following objectives. Objective 1: Develop high-value functionalized lipids from commodity vegetable oils for cosmeceutical and industrial applications. Objective 2: Develop high-value functionalized phospholipids from soybean lecithin for cosmeceutical and nutriceutical applications. Objective 3: Develop inorganic catalytic approaches that enable the production of industrial chemicals and products from commodity vegetable oils and/or biomass (lignocellulosics).

Approach:
The three primary objectives will each rely on a different technical approach. Commodity vegetable oils will be biocatalytically modified to introduce novel chemical functionality (Objective 1). Isolated enzymes will be used to convert plant phospholipids to ingredients for consumer products (Objective 2). Biomass will be catalytically converted under thermochemical conditions to value-added, fungible industrial chemicals and products (Objective 3).