Renewable chemical production from novel fatty acid feedstocks
AssigneeSolazyme, Inc.
InventorsScott Franklin, Aravind Somanchi, Karen Espina, George Rudenko, Penelope Chua
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Abstract
Disclosed herein are methods of manufacturing renewable chemicals through the manufacture of novel triglyceride oils followed by chemical modification of the oils. Methods such as transesterification, hydrogenation, hydrocracking, deoxygenation, isomerization, interesterification, hydroxylation, hydrolysis and saponification are disclosed. Novel oils containing fatty acid chain lengths of C8, C10, C12 or C14 are also disclosed and are useful as feedstocks in the methods of the invention.
Claims19
A method of manufacturing a chemical, the method comprising:
- (a) cultivating a cell of an oleaginous microorganism that comprises an exogenous fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase gene that encodes a fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase having hydrolysis activity towards one or more fatty acyl-ACP substrates of chain length C8, C10, C12, or C14 and an exogenous invertase gene, wherein the cell is cultured in a medium comprising sucrose and the cell produces triglyceride oil that has a lipid profile of at least 4% C8-C14;
- (b) performing one or more chemical reactions on the triglyceride oil to produce the chemical;
- and
- (c) separating the chemical from the reaction mixture after performing step (b).
A method of manufacturing a chemical, the method comprising:
- (a) cultivating a cell of an oleaginous microorganism that comprises an exogenous fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase gene that encodes a fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase having hydrolysis activity toward one or more fatty acyl-ACP substrates of chain length C8, C10, C12, or C14, wherein the cell produces triglyceride oil that has a lipid profile of at least 4% C8-C14;
- (b) performing one or more chemical reactions on the triglyceride oil, wherein the one or more chemical reactions comprise an amination reaction to produce the chemical, which comprises a fatty nitrogen compound;
- and
- (c) separating the chemical from the reaction mixture after performing step (b).
A method of manufacturing a chemical, the method comprising:
- (a) cultivating a cell of an oleaginous microorganism that comprises an exogenous fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase gene that encodes a fatty acyl-ACP thioesterase having hydrolysis activity towards one or more fatty acyl-ACP substrates of chain length C8, C10, C12, or C14, wherein the cell produces triglyceride oil that has a lipid profile of at least 4% C8-C14, wherein the cell further comprises an endogenous desaturase gene that is knocked out or down-regulated;
- (b) performing one or more chemical reactions on the triglyceride oil to produce the chemical;
- and
- (c) separating the chemical from the reaction mixture after performing step (b).
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.