Oilseed processing for food proteins, biofuels and nutraceuticals

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Food protein and renewable fuel from brassica seeds*Increased biofuel production led to a sharp rise in food prices, and a shortage of food staples that form the basis of the diet of the poor in developing countries. There is an ethical and economic dimension to balancing the use of crops for food or fuel. Canada is in a position to simultaneously increase the production of food and renewable fuels.* Brassica seeds typically contain oil and proteins in forms unsuitable for human consumption. While brassica seeds have protein of excellent quality, commercial isolate production is hampered by low protein recovery. Based on our detailed understanding of the chemistry of these seeds we have developed a membrane process for the production of high-quality protein isolates from brassica seeds (e.g. U.S.Patent 8,048,463, 2011). *The development of an integrated process for the recovery of food grade protein products and fuel grade biodiesel from conventional and unconventional oil sources, specifically yellow and oriental mustard, brassica carinata, camolina and algae is proposed, based on the use of isopropyl alcohol (IPA) directly and in aqueous systems as oil solvent. The process will recover the proteins as edible products using an adaptation of our membrane process. The oil will be converted, without separation from the extraction solvent, into biodiesel in a single-phase transesterification process using IPA both as solvent, and one of the reagent alcohols. IPA is less toxic than hexane, and its use would be preferred over hexane in terms of process and product safety and environmental quality.*The recovery of IPA will be investigated by physical and membrane techniques. Decarboxylation of the fatty acids will be examined based on both my earlier experience in catalytic hydrogenation, and electrolytic hydrogenation, that will permit the simplified processing and recovery of bio-based petroleum fuel replacements. These fuels are preferred over normal biodiesel, as they require no change in handling, blending and use in diesel engines.*As part of the program I propose to continue the development of membrane techniques for recovering valuable nutraceutical minor components from the waste water produced by the protein extraction process.*The proposed system goes beyond biorefinery schemes in not only fractionating the seed components, but also performing the transesterification reaction and biofuel production as an integral part of the process. If successful, the process will encourage the production of brassica carinata and mustard in areas that are not well suited to the growing of canola, and thus improve the agricultural yield of the dry areas of the Prairies, producing biofuels without reducing the food production of the area. With current fuel and food prices the process can make a significant contribution to the Mustard 21 goal of a $ 500 million/a mustard industry in Canada and help fulfill the mandated biodiesel/renewable fuel content of commercial diesel fuel used in Canada.