Terpene-based Manufacturing for Sustainable Chemical Feedstocks

我们的目标是开发一个可持续的综合平台，用于生产基于生物萜类原料的工业化学品，以补充碳水化合物、油和木质素为基础的原料，这些原料将用于未来的可持续化学利用工业。我们的重点将包括芳烃和胺的生产，这是其他生物原料特别具有挑战性的目标。从化石燃料向可再生能源的过渡是21世纪的一个关键挑战。目前正在努力解决这一问题，目前的工作重点是碳水化合物、脂肪和油以及木质素，由于复杂和富氧材料与为简单烃基石化原料开发的转化技术不相容，所有这些都产生了基本的技术障碍。这通常需要生物原料在部署到现有供应链之前进行成本高昂且效率低下的转化和分离。相反，萜烯是一类丰富的基于C5异戊二烯单位的天然产物。作为碳氢化合物，它们很容易从水环境中分离出来，并且可以很容易地使用现有的石化技术进行升级。虽然萜烯自古以来就被少量使用（特别是作为香料和香料），但它们尚未被系统地用于平台化学品的生产，尽管它们代表着潜在的巨大资源：全球萜烯的生物产量为10^9吨/年。全球市场上已经有大量低成本的有用萜烯（松节油和柠檬烯的产量分别为33万吨和3万吨/年，前者每升成本为0.09-0.19欧元）。虽然这本身就足以证明一个可行的增值化学平台是合理的（与木质素的指标相当：110万吨/年，每吨250- 2000英镑），但在不久的将来，通过异戊二烯代谢途径的工程，大规模（数百万吨/年）微生物生产萜烯，如用于生物燃料的法脂烯，这些数字将相形见绌。这种由Amyris等人开发的工业生物技术（IB）方法，有望通过植物糖和纤维素废料的发酵，大规模和灵活地供应萜烯。因此，探索萜烯化学开发的新通用技术是及时的，这不仅是为了可持续利用当前全球资源，而且也是为了利用IB的主要发展。然而，在萜烯基制造的背景下，需要解决的关键挑战包括：(i)可持续化学转化的开发和优化；扩大密集的转换过程；开发新的萜烯来源；（iv）对与新的萜烯制造技术相关的技术、环境和经济因素的系统级理解。该项目将通过四个相互关联的工作包直接解决这些挑战。该项目的产出将为英国最成功的行业之一提供竞争优势。2007年，依赖化学的工业为英国经济贡献了相当于21%的GDP，他们提供了600万个工作岗位（RSC 2010），营业额以每年5%的速度增长（UKTI, 2009）。IB的利用对保持竞争优势至关重要，2025年英国IB市场的价值估计为40亿至120亿英镑（BERR 2009）。具体到这个项目，开发以萜烯为基础的制造新集成技术，最终通过废纤维素的微生物发酵，将通过新的可持续制造工艺，降低原料成本，供应安全，减少对环境的影响，为英国工业提供竞争优势。英国将进一步受益于新技术和服务的出口，以及对未来低碳制造业至关重要的新技能的开发。

Our aim is to develop a sustainable, integrated platform for manufacture of industrial chemicals based on biological terpenoid feedstocks to complement carbohydrate, oil and lignin-based feedstocks that will be available to sustainable chemistry-using industries of the future. Our focus will include production of aromatics and amines which are particularly challenging targets from other biofeedstocks.Transition from fossil-based feedstocks to renewable alternatives is a key challenge for the 21st Century. Major efforts are underway to address this with work currently focused on carbohydrates, fats and oils, and lignins all of which give rise to fundamental technological barriers due to the incompatibility of complex and oxygen-rich materials with conversion technologies developed for simple hydrocarbon-based petrochemical feedstocks. This often requires biological feedstocks to undergo costly and inefficient transformations and separations prior to deployment in existing supply chains. In contrast, terpenes are an abundant class of natural products based on the C5 isoprene unit. As hydrocarbons they are easily separated from aqueous environments and can be readily upgraded using existing petrochemical technologies. While terpenes have been used in limited quantities since antiquity (notably as flavours and fragrances) they have yet to be exploited systematically for the production of platform chemicals even though they represent a potentially vast resource: global biogenic production of terpenes is 10^9 t/yr. Significant volumes of useful terpenes are already available on global markets at low cost (production of turpentine oils and limonene are 330,000 and 30,000 t/yr, respectively, the former costing 0.09-0.19 Euros per L). While this is sufficient in itself to justify a viable value-added chemical platform (metrics comparable to those for lignin: 1.1m t/yr at £250-2,000 per t) such figures will be dwarfed in the near future through the large-scale (multimillion t/yr) microbial production of terpenes such as farnesene for biofuels via the engineering of isoprene metabolic pathways. This industrial biotechnology (IB) approach, developed by Amyris and others, promises large-scale and geographically flexible supplies of terpenes via fermentation of plant sugars and cellulosic waste. Thus, the exploration of new generic technologies for the chemical exploitation of terpenes is timely, not only in terms of sustainable utilization of current global resources, but also to take advantage of major developments in IB. However, key challenges to be addressed in the context of terpene-based manufacturing include: (i) development and optimization of sustainable chemical transformations; (ii) scale-up of intensive conversion processes; (iii) development of new terpene sources; and (iv) systems-level understanding of technical, environmental and economic factors associated with new terpene-based manufacturing technologies. This project will address these challenges directly in four interconnected workpackages. Outputs from the project will provide a competitive advantage for one of the UK's most successful industries. Chemistry-reliant industries contributed an equivalent of 21% GDP to the UK economy in 2007, they support 6m jobs (RSC 2010), and turnover is growing at 5% pa (UKTI, 2009). The utilization of IB is vital to sustaining competitive advantage, with the value of the UK IB market in 2025 estimated at £4b to £12b (BERR 2009). Specific to this project, the development of new integrated technologies for terpene-based manufacturing, ultimately via microbial fermentation of waste cellulose, will provide competitive advantage for UK industries through new sustainable manufacturing processes, reduced feedstock costs, security of supply and reduced environmental impact. The UK will benefit further from export of new technologies and services and from development of new skills vital to future low carbon manufacturing.