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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania » Eastern Regional Research Center » Sustainable Biofuels and Co-products Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #417450
Research Project: Thermo-Catalytic Biorefining

Location: Sustainable Biofuels and Co-products Research

Title: Antimicrobial biophenolic branching fatty acids based on fast pyrolysis bio-oil phenolics

Author
item Lew, Helen
item Wagner, Karen
item Cermak, Steven
item Fan, Xuetong
item Kazem Rostami, Masoud
item Sarker, Majher
item RYU, VICTOR - Non ARS Employee
item Elkasabi, Yaseen

Submitted to: European Journal of Lipid Science and Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/30/2025
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Certain types of fats can be used to make coatings for preventing growth of bacteria. While these fats can be sourced from renewable plant sources, certain ingredients used to make the coating (phenols) are still sourced from non-renewable petroleum. In the past, our group has succeeded in producing these phenols from plant materials. Using these renewable phenols, we have successfully made a coating that is now 100% renewable and also prevents growth of certain types of bacteria. These coatings have applications in medical devices and hospitals.

Technical Abstract: Demand for biobased petrochemicals has increased across all product types. Included are phenolic compounds and their derivatized products. Thermochemical conversion, especially pyrolysis, offers one of the strongest opportunities for producing advanced biofuels and phenols. Previous work showed that unsaturated fatty acids from various biomass sources (soybean, brown grease, safflower) can react with phenol across the FA double bond(s) via the branched chain fatty acid (BCFA) synthesis. While phenolic BCFAs offer a gateway towards biobased antimicrobial coatings, the phenolic component has remained dependent on fossil-derived phenol. We have closed this gap by incorporating refined phenolics fraction from pyrolysis in the BCFA synthesis. Pyrolysis-derived phenols are incorporated in the synthesis, thus making the phenolic BCFA fully biorenewable. Catalytic fast pyrolysis of switchgrass produced bio-oils with sufficiently high concentrations of phenol and cresols (biophenolics). These one-ring biophenolics were extracted and redistilled, yielding a fraction of > 75 wt% phenols. Safflower (SF) and pennycress (PC) oils were hydrolyzed and subsequently functionalized with biophenolics using Ferrierite zeolite catalysts. Excess phenolics were removed using molecular distillation. Yields of biophenolic BCFAs ranged from 63% to 76%. Antimicrobial tests show resistance to strains of Listeria bacteria, thus expanding the applicability of fast pyrolysis oil products.