Grant: Idea to Innovation

Fatty alcohols are valuable compounds used industrially as surfactants, emulisifiers, emollients and lubricants. They are also extensively used in personal care products. Fatty alcohols form a $2.64 billion global industry with the bulk of production coming from Asia. Two widely used fatty alcohols, hexadecanol and octadecanol are derived from the chemical conversion of palm oil. While the technology for palm oil conversion is well established there are problems with its use for chemical production. These include competition for palm oil with the food industry and the deforestation and loss of bio-diversity driven by expansion of palm plantations. Additionally, palm derived products suffer from price and supply volatility. A microbial fermentation platform for production of these alcohols could bypass these problems providing both economic and environmental benefits. To develop an alternative source for the production of hexadecanol and octadecanol we have engineered a yeast strain to produce these chemicals by fermentation of sugar or cellulosic hydrolysates. Yeast was chosen as a production platform as it is robust, can tolerate industrial scale fermentation conditions and can utilize a wide variety of feed stocks. Fermentation trials at a four litre scale yield up to 200mg of fatty alcohol per litre of culture. Fermentations using cellulosic hydrolysates as feed stock yield up to 95mg of fatty alcohol per litre of culture. Additionally, we have been able to engineer the strain so as to exclusively produce octadecanol. The objectives of this project are (1) to perform further strain engineering to increase fatty alcohol production. This will include moving the production system into Yarrowia lipolytica, a yeast known to produce and accumulate large amounts of lipids. (2) To achieve fermentations at 750 litre scale to both define a process for industrial scale production and to produce and purify sufficient product to allow potential consumers of the hexadecanol and octadecaol to test our product in their own applications. Realization of these objectives will yield a reliable cost competitive source of fatty alcohols that will benefit Canadian industries and reduce the environmental impact associated with fatty alcohol production.