Non-Food/Feed Uses of Rendering Products: Identification of New Opportunities and Assessment of Major Barriers to Their Exploitation

Title: Non-Food/Feed Uses of Rendering Products: Identification of New Opportunities and Assessment of Major Barriers to Their Exploitation

Principle Investigator: Gary Pearl

Year: 2001

Objective: a) Evaluate the opportunities for industrial uses of rendered products as raw materials on the basis of their intrinsic chemistry (lipid, protein, mineral). The new uses may come from substituting for another source of a similar material, by taking advantage of inherent properties of the material, or by new derivatives of the material. This evaluation will be based upon the existing patent and technical literature.

b) Perform a preliminary assessment of market size, price structure and growth trends for those segments that appear to offer the greatest opportunities for penetration of derivatives from rendered products.

c) Identify the most attractive potential applications, determine the major barriers to entrance of rendered products into the market, and recommend strategies to overcome those barriers. Examples of barriers include needed enabling technologies, technology demonstration, product certification, or regulatory issues.

Summary

Triglycerides and fatty acids offer an array of unusual chemistries and properties for the production of new functional fluids and polymeric materials. The chemical basis for many of the reactions is the making or rearranging of the ester bond. Advances are being made rapidly in the development of new materials and new uses for these materials. At the same time, there is increasing attention being paid to the reaction engineering and reactor design issues unique to the application of these materials.