Rice University researchers convert glycerine into more high-value chemicals

Researchers at Rice University have uncovered a process to convert glycerine, produced during biodiesel trans-esterification, into valuable feedstocks such as succinate. Succinate is a feedstock for deicers and several non-toxic solvents, and is traditionally produced from crude oil. The researchers say that they have identified a strain of e.coli that produces up to 100 times as much succinate as conventional e.coli. The team had previously uncovered a means to convert glycerine to ethanol at a cost 40 percent below the cost of producing ethanol from corn.

This year, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources is cracking down on glycerine dumping, which is fouling state waterways. Biodiesel producers have been dumping glycerine in recent months due to low prices for the alcohol, which is costly to purify for sale in the commodity markets. A biodiesel producer was indicted in January for dumping glycerine into Belle Fountain Ditch in the state’s Bootheel region, leading to a wipeout of 25,000 fish and a colony of protected fat pocketbook mussels.

Glycol Biotechnologies, a Texas firm founded by Rice University researchers that has developed a technology that converts glycerine into ethanol, will begin producing ethanol at a pilot plant in Houston by mid 2008. The company uses a strain of E. coli for its process.

Glycerine is a 10 percent by-product of biodiesel production, and the boom in biodiesel has resulted in a glycerine glut and depressed the finances of the biodiesel plants who make it. According to one of the company’s co-founders, they have received unsolicited queries from producers representing more than half of biodiesel production.

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