Wageningen, The Netherlands
March 11, 2009
Plant Research International
and the Microbiology science group, both part of Wageningen UR,
have jointly developed potato plants that are capable of
producing itaconic acid. Itaconic acid is a valuable raw
material for the chemical industry, for instance in the
production of high-quality synthetic materials. With this
discovery, Wageningen UR has contributed to the more sustainable
biobased production of raw materials.
Plants are particularly suitable because they use solar energy
for their growth. "We now want to investigate in which part of
the plant, and in which compartment of the cells, the itaconic
acid can be synthesized and accumulated best," says Ingrid van
der Meer, one of the scientists involved. "We already know, for
instance, that tubers are far more suitable for the process than
leaves."
The chemical industry mostly uses fossil oil and gas derived
products as starting material for base chemicals. The use fossil
resources, however, contributes to CO2 emission and fossil
materials are finite. Although it may take another 50 years for
fossil oil reserves to run dry, alternative, and preferably
renewable sources for production of chemical building blocks
need to be developed today. With this in mind, Wageningen UR is
exploring the options for using plants to produce compounds that
can replace petrochemicals.
Plants form a very attractive production system to supply
building block chemicals for the chemical industry. They are
eminently capable of producing large quantities of one specific
substance, even hundreds of thousands of tons, which is a scale
that meets the requirements of the chemical sector.
Additionally, by nature plants have significant 'chemical
machinery' in place that can be relatively easily adapted via
molecular breeding. And due to the plants' use of solar energy,
plants may an eco-friendly way of producing raw building block
chemicals.
In their research into chemicals production by plants, WUR
scientists are mainly focussing on substances that can be used
for commodity chemicals and chemical intermediates (dit zijn
relatief specifieke termen, mischien beter om te zeggen:...
focussing on substances which potentially can be used in bulk
volumes, but still relatively valuable, and which can act as a
starting material for more than one chemical product. Such
substances are also called 'platform chemicals' as they serve as
the basic material for numerous chemical processes.
One of the substances that can be used this way is itaconic
acid, a natural compound with a structure that resembles citric
acid. Itaconic acid can be used to produce many different
products. Itaconic acid can for example serve as a starting
material for production of methacrylate, building blocks for
polymethyl methacrylate acrylic plastics, with a global
production volume of 3 million tonnes. In nature, itaconic acid
is produced by the fungus Aspergillus terreus. A commercial
strain of this fungus is already being used for the industrial
production of itaconic acid, although this production method has
high costs in terms of money and energy, preventing large scale
use of this molecule Itaconic acid is currently used in small
quantities:
about 10,000 tons a year.
The first breakthrough for the Wageningen scientists was to
identify the genetic code for the production of itaconic acid
within the fungus. This genetic information was then introduced
into potato plants via genetic modification, expanding its
already extensive chemical machinery. Sure enough, the plants
turned out to be capable of producing itaconic acid.
The scientists have yet to determine the ideal way to deploy
this system in practice. They are still dealing with issues such
as whether the accumulation rate in potato can be further
optimized and how the itaconic acid can best be harvested.
In the meantime, the Wageningen scientists are convinced that
plants will some moment in the future (soon, dat klinkt weer zo
al een wetenschapper met overspannen verwachtingen,
opportunisitisch prima, maar ook professioneel) be used as a
sustainable source for the production of a number of compounds
that are currently being produced from fossil oil and gas. Their
discovery is a small but essential step in realising this ideal. |
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