Biobased Industrial Products Priorities for Research and Commercialization (2000) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 15-25
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From page 15... ...
Unlike fossil sources, these biological carbon sources are a potentially renewable asset that is replenished daily by photosynthetic activity. Renewable agricultural and forestry resources have been used since ancient times as the raw materials for numerous products.
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. The conversion of agricultural and forest biological raw materials into value-added industrial products continues to be a promising area of research.
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In 1995 the National Research Council convened a committee under the Board on Biology to identify priorities for research and commercialization of biobased industrial products derived from agricultural and forestry resources. Committee members were selected for expertise in several key areas, including biomaterials, bioprocessing, economics, enzymology, forest products, lipid and carbohydrate chemistry, microbial and plant genetics, plant biochemistry and pathology, microbiology, and technology transfer.
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From page 18... ...
This committee identified some potential benefits of biobased industrial products that it believes are real. However, these benefits, which are listed below, have not in most cases undergone a rigorous analysis to demonstrate their validity: • use of currently unexploited productivity in agriculture and for estry; • reliance on products that are more biodegradable and processes that create less pollution and generally have fewer harmful envi ronmental impacts; • development of less expensive and better-performing products; • development of novel materials not available from petroleum sources; • exploitation of U.S.
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To the extent that biobased fuels can slow global warming, the United States could develop processes for making biomass fuels and market these technologies internationally. Environmental Quality Use of fossil carbon sources poses a number of potential hazards to the environment and public health.
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With rapidly increasing energy demands in the Third World countries, fossil fuels could make potential global warming eventually very disruptive, unless nonfossil sources can be substituted. The evaluations of biomass energy system effects on atmospheric
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coli, these bacteria require less preliminary treatment of the cell walls because they contain additional enzymes that allow direct uptake of complex sugars (such as cellobiose and cellotriose) from plant cell walls.
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Conversely, harvesting residues for production of biobased chemicals may reduce air pollution from the open burning of residues and the frequency of plant pest and disease outbreaks, thereby reducing fungicide and insecticide use. At the same time research is done that will lead to more economic conversion of agricultural wastes, analyses should be done to examine the consequences of large-scale diversion of agricultural wastes for use as feedstocks for biobased industrial products.
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While there may be some potential for biobased industries to increase job opportunities, there are insufficient data to make accurate predictions of the impacts of biobased industries on future employment trends. Currently the entire chemicals industry (not the fuels industry)
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Many opportunities are on the horizon for biobased industrial products, and both public and private interest have been sparked. New chemicals and materials isolated or manufactured from renewable resources promise industrial products with superior performance characteristics (Kaplan et al., 1992)
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Whether such a shift occurs will depend on public policy decisions and developments in several key areas addressed in the remainder of this report. Chapter 2 examines existing and potential renewable raw materials that could be used as a source for biobased industrial products.
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