(201d) Emerging Opportunities and Challenges for Biobased Products

There is renewed interest in bio-based products from plant derived chemical feedstock. Novel chemical and biochemical approaches are under active investigation at leading research organizations, universities and companies to develop commercially viable products from plant oils and proteins. The main impetus for the interest in bio-based feed stock is two fold. The first one is an accelerating imbalance in supply and demand of conventional petroleum-based chemical feedstock. The second is advances in plant biotechnology to design oils and proteins with desired functionality. In the paper we highlight some of the recent work done in the filed with an emphasis on work done at Battelle.