Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Synthesis of High Oleate Blends and Lactate from Waste and Surplus Vegetable Oils
EPA Contract Number: 68HERC20C0037Title: Synthesis of High Oleate Blends and Lactate from Waste and Surplus Vegetable Oils
Investigators: Lu, Zhiyao
Small Business: Catapower, Inc.
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: I
Project Period: March 1, 2020 through August 31, 2020
Project Amount: $100,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase I (2020) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) , SBIR – Sustainable Materials Management
Description:
Catapower is a cleantech chemical technology company that utilizes a proprietary catalyst to transform glycerol and surplus vegetable oils to lactate salts and high oleate fatty acid blends. To our knowledge, ours is the only technology of its kind with commercial readiness.
Waste vegetable oils are in such surplus from food production in the US market that we transform them into biodiesel. Glycerol is readily available as a low-value byproduct derived from the production of biodiesel, and lactate salts are emerging as environmentally friendly agrichemicals for soil amendment and bioremediation applications, as anti-microbial material used in meat production, as additives in personal care products, and in many other applications. Driven by increasing interest in organic consumer goods and environmental stewardship, all of these markets are experiencing significant growth that is not adequately met using current commercial lactate production methods. Catapower's proprietary catalyst technology enables streamlined, efficient synthesis of lactates and oleates and alleviates waste disposal pressure from the biodiesel industry. Furthermore, this technology can improve the overall economics of biodiesel production while displacing chlorine, bleach, and ammonia from the production and supply of food and other consumer goods.
Lactate distributors are in urgent need of additional qualified lactate sources to meet the rapidly growing market demand. The combined market size of all lactate salts is large, on the scale of 105 metric tons per year. This is projected to see 5-10% annual growth for the next ten years, owning to emerging, diverse applications, such as use as a natural food additive, preservative, flavor enhancer, humectant and moisturizer, pH regulator, antioxidant, emulsifier, agrichemical, and bioremediation nutrient. This fast-growing market makes it difficult for manufactures to keep up with demand using current technology, the inefficient fermentation of sugar to lactic acid.
We developed novel catalytic transformations to convert glycerol and vegetable oils to lactate and oleate with near-perfect yield and selectivity. While this is a crowded field, we were the first to solve the critical lactate selectivity problem that was inhibiting commercial translation of glycerol-to-lactate conversion. In contrast to the known fermentation synthesis of lactate, which typically has a yield of 1%, Catapower's catalytic synthesis has realized yields greater than 95%. Moreover, while the fermentation method is a two-step process that comprises sugar fermentation and basification, our catalytic conversion is a single step, allowing us great flexibility to design highly efficient, scalable process approaches for lactate production.
Our catalytic lactate synthesis is the best technology to utilize the molecular complexity of vegetable oil products in the market surplus, because we make a high-valuable fine chemical rather than an antifreeze or low-value material. Moreover, once implemented on a large scale, our route will displace toxic/carcinogenic materials (disinfectants, chemical fertilizers) from the environment, starting with agrichemical applications and moving into other areas such as personal care products and animal feed.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
While our oleate products have the benefits to many industries, including improving cold flow and oxidation stability in biodiesel, it is the value add in converting glycerol to lactates that drives our revenue model: the push to utilize glycerol as a feedstock for any process is strong. Glycerol is a non-toxic polyol liquid, produced on very large scales as a by-product for all industrial processes that involve the transesterification of triglycerides, particularly biodiesel fuels. For example, in 2016, glycerol production from the biodiesel sector alone exceeded 2.7 million metric tons, with an average annual growth rate of 7.5% since then. This strong glycerol supply contrasts a weak market demand. In the same year, the global demand for glycerol across all industry sectors was only 0.4 million tons, as estimated by Global Market Insights. While glycerol production is expected to reach 4.2 million tons this year, poor demand is expected to leave at least 3 million tons of glycerol as surplus.
On the demand side, there is a strong pull for innovation in lactate manufacturing, driven by applications in food preservation, crop cultivation, and bioremediation.
· Food preservation. In 2016, the National Organic Standards Board at the USDA formally recommended sodium lactate and potassium lactate as food ingredients for their antimicrobial and pH-regulating functions. Lactate salts are also recognized as "Direct Food Substances Affirmed as Generally Recognized as Safe" by the FDA, making them popular choices for pathogen inhibitors and flavor enhancers in food, animal feed, and personal care products.
· Crop cultivation. Organic farming in the United States grew by a staggering average annual rate of 18% during the USDA's most recent reporting period, requiring a corresponding growth in nontraditional fertilizers. As a source of the essential micronutrient potassium and soil-building carbon, potassium lactate has been used as a component of organic soil amendments. Growth in this market will likely track the global 8.4% annual growth rate projected for organic agriculture overall, with greater growth potential in the United States.
· Bioremediation. In addition to supplying potassium and carbonaceous matter, potassium lactate has been used as a reductant in the bioremediation of US EPA Superfund sites contaminated with halocarbons, and it has also shown promise in chromium(IV) reduction.
Despite the strong market demand for lactate products, current methods for lactate synthesis are struggling to meet the demand. Today's incumbent technology is largely the same fermentation method as fifty years ago. In a typical process, sugar is fermented to lactic acid, which is then neutralized with a hydroxide to yield the corresponding lactate salt. There are two key drawbacks to this approach: the feedstock is sugar; and the catalyst, a living creature, and can't easily be accelerated or scaled. Our technology addresses both issues: our feedstock is an inexpensive waste product that is readily and widely available. Our catalytic synthesis can operate at > 200 oC to accelerate conversion and create product mixtures containing more than 95 wt% potassium lactate. The dramatically simplified purification enabled by our high yields alone is sufficient to provide a competitive advantage over the current fermentation technology.
Conclusions:
Catapower's unique technology puts us at the intersection of two vital, yet thus far disconnected marketplaces: we can connect the surplus of waste chemicals with the deficiency of lactate salts, while capturing the value gap between these commodity materials. Our catalysis platforms enable us to utilize either surplus vegetable oils (directly) or upgrade glycerol (e.g. from biodiesel industry) after the value of biodiesel has been recovered from the oil. In either case, we recover materials from the biodiesel value chain and deliver it to applications in food preservation, agriculture, and bioremediation.
Our cross-cutting technology puts Catapower in the center of several vital marketplaces. We add significant value to the biofuels industry by enabling a previously inaccessible revenue stream from the otherwise worthless glycerol byproduct from conventional biodiesel production. We further benefit this industry by enabling a supply of oleates that address biodiesel's deficiencies in cold flow and oxidation stability properties.
We provide lactates that fill urgent unmet needs of lactate sellers like Hawkins and Galactic, which ultimately is what drives our revenue model. Further, exclusive rights to sell our highly engineered homogeneous catalysts enables us to draw a separate revenue stream from these in the fine chemicals market as academic groups continue to find new applications for these remarkable catalytic platforms.
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.