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FAIR-CT97-3884
CTVO-NET: Chemical-technical utilisation of vegetable oils - 1998 Workshops |
Introduction
With an estimated annual consumption of 2.6 million tons, natural fats and oils are among the main biological raw materials for chemical and technical applications in Europe. Oils and fats or their derivatives can be found in many industrial and consumer products. The EC has recognised the importance of this sector and support R&D activities along the whole production and processing chain. To find new market outlets for natural oils and fats, requires co-ordination of activities and exchange of information. This concerted action ( FAIR-CT97-3884) aims to do this, mainly though organisation of workshops covering specific market sectors. This page reports on the second two workshops, held in late 1998. Workshops 1 and 2 are described in Summary Information.
The Third Workshop - Biotechnology and Industrial Utilisation of Vegetable
Oils
The Fourth Workshop - New Applications for Vegetable Oils
The third CTVO-net workshop was held in Wageningen, the Netherlands, at the end of November 1998. It was organised by CPRO-DLO and covered the following areas:
The proceedings include the overheads and illustrations from many of the presentations, as well as a concluding discussion, within which the following points were raised concerning:
Industrial barriers/drivers and government involvement
It
was acknowledged that the most important drivers of the industry is the
consumer's demand. When the consumers make items like sustainable growth,
environmental pollution and life cycle assessment important then these
become a selling point. At the moment this is not the case but its impact
is expected to increase. Because this is a slow process with many
uncertainties the big industries, in general, are reserved to make
investments. It was stated that investments should show their return of
money within a few years. Innovations are mostly made by small, medium
enterprises (SME's). Large companies tend to buy SME's in order to acquire
the necessary expertise/knowledge. Hence, new products for new markets
will most probably be developed by SME's.
Replacing common raw materials by new/novel ones can be considered by large enterprises but only when in addition to other benefits (for example. ecological, steady supply), the price of the raw material is competitive to the existing ones. It was concluded that new large innovation/developments (for example to implement biotechnology products) by large companies is only possible if this decision is made at corporate level because of the extreme high investments involved. In stead of carrying the investments themselves, large companies tend to support developments/initiatives by small companies, universities or research institutes.
The role of the government and European commission to direct developments was acknowledged. By subsidising research and by making restrictions/legislation important community changes (and consumers' demands) are forced. However, changing regulations and uncertainty about future situation will inhibit investments by industries. It was mentioned that developments made in the past, such as water based paints, high solid paints, recycling of cars, was directed by the governments/regulations, thus forced. Still, the consumer may think one way and react the other. As example the eco-food situation was given. All consumers favour less fertilisers, less pesticides but the market share of these products is only 2%.
In the past years the European commission has subsidised large amounts of money in many new developments but the results/market implementation has been limited. Many new renewable resources have been investigated but only small acreage's of new crops are grown. Therefore, in the coming years, the EC subsidy will be focused at the end product development rather than raw material development. It was felt that the arguments for this focus were not correct. It should be remembered that development of new raw materials/crops is a long term activity (> 20 years) which consumes large amount of money. The production of the first kilogram of a new raw material or growing the first hectare is always very difficult. In addition, progressing from lab scale to pilot and from there to large scale is time consuming and expensive, thus risky. It was expected that the initiatives developed within the EC regarding novel (oilseed) crops could result in large community benefits in the long term. It is to early to expect spectacular results. However, legislation and financial stimulation will determine what, when and how. At present, the EC subsidy system inhibits the introduction of new crops.
Future industrial needs & future research focus of breeding and
biotechnology
The EC member states have highly
knowledge/technology based economies and should focus on strengthening
their position. Hence, new technologies such as biotechnology or breeding
technology should be developed. Because these technologies are expensive,
the price of the seed should increase in order to enable return of
investments. A propulsion to increase seed prices is the decreasing
lifetime of a new hybrid (ca. 4 years). It is expected that in the coming
years only a few seed firms will exist which are able to follow these
developments and that a price increase of seed is inevitable. The activity
of breeding and biotechnology should continue as present without further
focus. We should accumulate as much knowledge and potential products as
possible so that when the market asks we can react immediately. Thus,
continue with altering the fatty acid profiles and develop new oil(crops).
One can not say when or where the market asks for these products. As an
example the history of the development of double zero rape seed was given.
The market demand for this variety suddenly appeared. Companies which had
this variety on their shelves were able to occupy the market and made
money.
Most biotechnology research is focused on a few crops (i.e. rape and sunflower) because the introduction is easiest and fasted with these species. The company which enter the market with genetic modified organism (GMO) will have the largest market share and will have the best chances to earn back their investments. However, when too many different GMO varieties of one crop (say >4) are grown, many very large problems are expected. Therefore, availability of alternatives (new crops) is essential for the long term survival.
The fourth CTVO-net workshop was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 1998. It aimed to:
Presentations, from which abstracts and/or slides and overheads are presented in the proceedings, covered the following topics:
New high added value applications of vegetable oils
Oil crops as host plants for molecular farming
Vegetable oils from new (untraditional ) oil crops and untraditional sources (waxes, cereal oils, nutriceuticals etc.)
These presentations were summarised as follows:
The workshop presented many new interesting applications for vegetable oil within the areas of pharmaceutical, oleochemicals, agrochemicals cosmetic and body care products as well as new methods for production and extraction of vegetable oils. In the view of Henkel there is an industrial demand for high oleic oils with low stearic acid content and for seeds with low variation in fatty acid profile. High oleic oils (83-100%) makes it possible do synthesise derivatives directly from the triglyceride. Dr. Soderberg from Lundbeck gave a presentation on pharmaceutical applications of vegetable oils. In oral formulation semi solid drug powder is disposed in a lipid matrix. For pharmaceutical application of liposomes the focus will be on drugs targeted to specific tissue. In pharmaceuticals the use of lipid raw materials is expensive compared to synthetic alternatives and requires considerable analytical resources. Lipid raw materials will be used in niche products with added value. The added value can be reduced toxicity of the drug, improved bioavailability, and improved functionality.
CRODA gave an overview of the agroindustrial uses for vegetable oils and their derivatives. The global market is 50 billions US$ per year. The products are generally based on petrochemicals but there are many opportunities for sustainable materials. There are over 50 formulation types, the most common types involves vegetables oils from EC. In the future the requirements for agrochemical will be high biodegradability, low ecotoxicology and cost-effective product.
Arges Environmental presented esters based on vegetable oils. For hydraulic fluids and lubricants to significantly penetrate the market the technical challenges are to improve the oxidative stability of the vegetable oils. AArhus Oils showed a number of vegetable oil formulation aimed at replacing mineral oil based products like liquid paraffin, paraffin wax and petroleum jelly. Moreover a rape seed oil formulation used in skin cream was presented. The company Ceratech ApS has further developed this cream.
M. Sala from SSOG in Milano showed a number of new applications of
Squalene recovered from olive oil deodorization distillates. Exposed to
air squalene is oxidised forming peroxides. A total hydrogenation of
squalualene is known as the product squalane . Squalene is used in
cosmetics, manufacturing of pharmaceuticals, aromatics, rubber chemicals,
surface-active impulse, and bactericide. Squalane is used in many
different cosmetic products, in pharmaceuticals, as high-grade lubricant
oil and as an ingredient of watch and chronometer oils
The title of
the presentation of Prof. Verlop was "New processing methods for
bioconversions - immobilised biocatalysts". Examples presented were
Klebsiella pneumoniae and Clostridium butyricum producing
1,3 -propanediol entrapped in lentiKats® (a gelation products based on
poly vinyl alcohol (PVA).
Hilmer Sorensen presented the results of 2nd generation biorefinery products from rape seed oil. The calculated added value of processing one ton rape seed compared to the product obtained from traditional processing was + 132%. Nick Price, CSL gave an overview of the use of crop protections based on natural oils. In the Kew Database (1820-1998) 240 plant oils had been recorded with activities as attractants, repellents, insect growth regulators, fumigants and insecticides. If natural oils should be able to compete with "synthetics" more knowledge on dosage, toxicological packages, efficiency and environmental data are needed.
From Melwyn Askews agronomic and markets opportunities -constraints for novel oils was outlined. The impact of the agenda 2000 proposal has been calculated. For the farmers the gross margin will decrease by 0,51% for wheat, 15% for rape seed and 35% for linseed.
K. Aitzedmuller described investigations on minor seed oils and unusual fatty acids. Unusual fatty acid structures are rather widespread in the plant kingdom. However their distribution, phylogeny, and biosynthesis routes have never thoroughly been investigated. Some species contain unusual fatty acids like Calendula, Dimorphotheca, Limnanthes, and Euphorbia lagascae. Such plant species are not only of interest for plant breeders, some are currently in test plantation.
Sandro Palmieri gave a presentation on industrial use of vegetable oils-reality and potential. According to Dr. Palmieri the ecological aspects related to alternative crops will become more and more important not only for obtaining special EU agricultural subsidy but overall to meet precise life quality exigency. The increasing consumer awareness of environmental matters and the necessity of agriculture and industry to diversify their products and co-products, could be decisive points for the success of replacing mineral oils with vegetable oils in industrial application.
Discussion
This workshop had 30 participants coming from 6 different European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, and United Kingdom). The workshop presented many untraditional applications of vegetable oils including minor components such as squalene and glucosinolates. As illustrated in the presentations vegetable oils can chemically be modified for very specific purposes. However many of the applications considered might have limited markets.
Genetic manipulation might lead to seeds with fatty acid distribution that met the requirements of industry enabling European produced vegetable oils to compete with tropical oils. It was generally agreed that genetic engineering has made it possible to alter the fatty acid composition in traditional European oil crops to better suit the demand by the oil consuming industry. The oil industry has, on the other hand, easy access to cheap vegetable oils on the world market. These oils can to a large extend be chemically modified or separated to meet the quality requirements for bulk products. Alternative approaches to a general improvement of the fatty acid composition could be to increase the content of specific fatty acids for speciality uses via genetic engineering or to develop new separation and purification technologies in order to utilise also the minor (often expensive) components.
Conclusions
The presentations covered very different topics making it difficult to find a common denominator. For instance pharmaceutical use of vegetable oils is a niche production that has extremely high requirements concerning purity and homogeneity, while the requirements from the oleochemical and agrochemical industries often are cheap oils in abundant supply. For lubricants the demand for vegetable oils will be in formulation with improved oxidation stability.
In the present market situation there is still room for developing EU based vegetable oils to meet industrial needs for new products. From the discussion it was pointed that successful development of marketable product will depend on close co-operation between farmers, plant breeders and industry. However, if the agenda 2000 proposal is approved in its present form EU grown vegetable oils might decrease in volume due to the low gross margin for the farmers. Industry and consumers w ill probably still be interested in vegetable oils in industrial products due to reduced toxicity, improved biodegradation, in some cases better quality, and possibilities of higher value products.
Recommendations
Extracted from the presentations and the discussion the following recommendation seems appropriate:
© Copyright 2006 Policy Statements
Updated
by CPL Press:
03/07/2007
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