Fatty alcohol production: an opportunity of bioprocess

Abstract

Fatty alcohols are widely used for various applications and are found in products ranging from detergents to cosmetics and cleaning agents. Currently, over 3 million tonnes of fatty alcohols are produced per year from bio‐based and petroleum‐based feedstocks through chemical conversion and synthetic processes. However, the environmental impact of current fatty alcohol production processes has become a major concern, and several bioprocesses have emerged as alternative methods for synthesis. These biological processes are environmentally friendly due to their metal‐free nature, low consumption of energy, and mild reaction conditions. This review overviews the current status of fatty alcohol production – both chemical and biological approaches. Our focus is on biological synthesis approaches using biocatalysis and metabolic engineering due to their proven efficacy. Potential downstream processing for these bioprocesses is also presented. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Current Challenges and Opportunities in Non-native Chemical Production by Engineered Yeasts

“…With the help of synthetic biology, fatty acids are transformed into non-native chemicals with a wide range of applications. As fatty alcohols and fatty esters have been frequently discussed in previous reviews ( Hu et al, 2019 ; Munkajohnpong et al, 2020 ), we focused on medium-chain and odd-chain fatty acids for which yeast engineering efforts have made noticeable progress in recent years, due to their importance as platform chemicals for the replacement of petroleum in the chemical industry.…”

Reconfiguring workup steps in multi-cycle extractive bioconversion for sustainable fatty alcohol production: a process engineering approach

“…1,2 Fatty alcohols are produced largely from petro-based and bio-based feedstocks via the Ziegler process and catalytic hydrogenation, respectively. 3 These processes require metal catalysts and relatively high temperatures. In Asia, a large proportion of fatty alcohols was produced from bio-based sources (1.57 million tons, as of 2015) due to the dominant role of Asian countries in the production of plant oils, e.g.…”

Biosynthesis of Fatty Alcohols in Engineered Microbial Cell Factories: Advances and Limitations

“…Expansion of monoculture palm oil plantations drives loss of rain forests and biodiversity, while petrochemical synthesis is associated with increased carbon emissions and chemical waste ( Wake, 2005 ; Fitzherbert et al, 2008 ; Lees and Vieira, 2013 ). Chemical conversion processes for the production of fatty alcohols have been extensively reviewed elsewhere ( Munkajohnpong et al, 2020 ) and this review will focus exclusively upon efforts to engineer microbial cells to produce fatty alcohols.…”