Optimising feedstock utilisation for a fermentation-derived palm oil alternative

优化发酵棕榈油替代品的原料利用率

• 批准号: 10064370
• 金额: $ 8.77万
• 依托单位: SUN BEAR BIOWORKS LTD
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Collaborative R&D
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=10064370
• 关键词: Optimising; feedstock; utilisation; fermentation; derived

Palm oil is everywhere. It's in food, cosmetics and biofuels. It's in 50% of our supermarket products. Palm oil is unique in the vegetable oil market; it melts in your mouth, is great for cooking and is a high-yielding crop. However, palm oil is one of the biggest carbon emitters due to loss of tropical rainforest and peatland to make way for plantations - it contributes over 500 million tonnes of CO2e, over 1% of global emissions, from 19 million hectares of tropical land. It has caused significant habitat loss, including for the Orangutan and Sun Bear, and all too often the smallholders do not receive a fair price for their produce.The UK Government has committed to reaching Net Zero by 2050; 20% of UK emissions stem from agriculture and the food supply chain and these emissions must be tackled if we are to reach these targets.Sun Bear Bioworks is using precision fermentation to make an alternative to palm oil. We are optimising a yeast strain that naturally produces oil, in order to create our oil from food waste quickly and efficiently. Our process saves 5.7kg CO2 and 2000m2 land for every kg of palm oil - a saving in both cases of 80%. We are working with Evolutor on this project to optimise our strain's ability to process low-grade, sustainable feedstocks. Feedstock accounts for most of our process cost at scale, and finding a scalable sugar alternative is vital if we are to create maximum environmental impact. This builds on the work we carried out as part of our Fast Start award, project 10045430 "Alternative feedstock for precision fermentation of oil", which has allowed us to prove expression of key enzymes in our yeast strain for the metabolism of starch.

棕榈油无处不在。它存在于食品、化妆品和生物燃料中。我们超市 50% 的产品都含有这种成分。棕榈油在植物油市场上独树一帜；它入口即化，非常适合烹饪，而且是一种高产作物。然而，由于热带雨林和泥炭地为种植园让路而消失，棕榈油成为最大的碳排放源之一 - 它从 1900 万公顷的热带土地中排放了超过 5 亿吨二氧化碳当量，占全球排放量的 1% 以上。它造成了严重的栖息地丧失，包括猩猩和马来熊的栖息地丧失，而且小农的产品往往无法得到公平的价格。英国政府承诺到 2050 年实现净零排放；英国 20% 的排放来自农业和食品供应链，如果我们要实现这些目标，就必须解决这些排放问题。Sun Bear Bioworks 正在使用精密发酵来制造棕榈油的替代品。我们正在优化天然产油的酵母菌株，以便快速有效地从食物垃圾中生产油。我们的工艺每生产一公斤棕榈油可减少 5.7 公斤二氧化碳和 2000 平方米土地 - 两种情况下均节省 80%。我们正在与 Evolutor 合作开展这个项目，以优化我们的菌株处理低品位、可持续原料的能力。原料占我们大规模加工成本的大部分，如果我们要创造最大的环境影响，找到可扩展的糖替代品至关重要。这是我们作为快速启动奖项目 10045430“油精确发酵的替代原料”的一部分所开展的工作的基础，该项目使我们能够证明我们的酵母菌株中淀粉代谢关键酶的表达。