(454c) Biobased Chemical Production Through a Generalized Technology Platform

Replacement of crude oil-derived chemicals with biorenewables chemicals will necessitate developing capabilities to remove oxygen selectively from carbohydrates.  The serial approach of targeting one biorenewable chemical product is both time intensive and expensive.  Since biorenewable chemicals must compete against a highly efficient petrochemical production system there is a need to create a generalized oxygen-removal framework in which a range of biorenewable chemicals can be produced from a common technological platform.  One such generalized technological framework, being developed by CBiRC, depends on the exploitation of a common metabolic pathway leading to a diversity of intermediate chemicals that are subsequently converted to chemical products using chemical catalysts.  An overview of the technical strategy being used by CBiRC to achieve a generalized chemical production platform will be discussed as well as several specific examples involving varying chain length carboxylic acids with decarboxylation to olefins and biological-produced pyrones with subsequent ring opening or aromatization.