Feedstock muconic acid

The use of renewable feedstocks for creating alternative synthetic routes to chemicals of major industrial importance is exemplified by the biosynthetic method for producing hydroquinone, benzoquinone, catechol, and ci.v-ci.v-muconic acid from glucose by means of a genetically altered... 

Four billion pounds of adipic acid are produced each year using petroleum-based feedstocks, carcinogenic benzene as starting material, and extreme reaction conditions. Nitrous oxide, which plays a role in ozone layer depletion, is emitted as a byproduct. As an alternative to the currently employed synthetic methcdology, a two-step synthesis of adipic acid from D-glucose has been developed which eliminates each of these problems. A microbial catalyst was created which possesses a novel biosynthetic pathway that synthesizes cis, cis-muconic acid from D-glucose. This pathway does not occur in nature but has been created in a strain of Escherichia colL Cis, cw-muconic acid is exported to the culture supernatant, where it is hydrogenated under mild conditions to yield adipic acid. 

TABLE 19.2 Variable Cost Price of the Production of Bio-Adipic Acid from Different Feedstocks Via an Integrated Biotechnological Process With Cis,Cis-Muconic Acid as Intermediate Metabolite at 37 g/L in the Fermentation Broth... 

FIGURE 19.9 The variable cost price in euros per ton bio-adipic acid at a molar yield of 25-100% and a concentration of 25-100 g/L of cw,cw-muconic acid when glucose (A) or bnpure small aromatic compounds from lignin (B) are used as feedstock. 

Weber C, Bruckner C, Weinreb S, Lehr C, Essl C, Boles E. (2012). Biosynthesis of cis,cis-muconic acid and its aromatic precursors, catechol and protocatechuic acid, from renewable feedstocks by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Appl Environ Microbiol, 78, 8421-8430. 

More recently, some other monomers have been studied. The attraction of production of well-known materials from renewable feedstock led to studies of the use of ethanol for the production of bio-based polyethylene (PE), of caprolactam and muconic acid for the production of polyamides (PA) and of isobutylene for the synthesis of polyisobutylene. 

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