ARS | Publication request: VALUED-ADDED PRODUCTS THROUGH BIOPROCESSING: NEW HYDROXY FATTY ACIDS

Submitted to: Inform
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: February 6, 2002
Publication Date: April 1, 2002
Citation: HOU, C.T., KUO, T., LANSER, A.C. VALUED-ADDED PRODUCTS THROUGH BIOPROCESSING: NEW HYDROXY FATTY ACIDS. INFORM. 2002. V. 13. P. 307-316.

Technical Abstract: Annual soybean oil (SBO) production in the United States usually exceeds domestic and export needs. More than 18 billion pounds of SBO were produced from the 1999-2000 year harvest with a carryover of more than 300 million pounds. Although the major use of this oil is for food products such as shortenings, salad and cooking oils, and margarines; small quantities serve industrial applications. Total non-food uses of soybean oil have grown little during the past 30 years. Although markets for epoxidized oils have increased, other markets have lost to competitive petroleum products. It is only through continued development of new industrial products and processes that vegetable oils will be able to maintain their market share. For applications such as cosmetics, lubricants, and chemical additives; soybean oil and other vegetable oils are to viscous and too reactive toward atmospheric oxygen to establish significant markets. For other uses including coatings, detergents, polymers, flavors, agricultural chemicals, and pharmaceuticals; reactivity of vegetable oils needs to be enhanced by introducing additional functionalities or through cleaving the fatty acid molecules.