Methods for Production of Fatty Acid Alkanolamides (FAAAs) from Microalgae Biomass

Project ID: D2014-07IP Status: Provisional patent # 62/095,502 filedInvention Description: Concise and efficient procedure for FAAA synthesis and isolation from lipid-containing algal biomass. Applications: Industrial uses such as biosurfactants or biolubricants including personal care products, pharmaceuticals, detergents, rust inhibitors, ink formulations; and many other applications. Novelty: Methods of reacting biomass: 1)     Achieves near quantitative conversion of the fatty acyl donors (FAD) in the lipids FAAA or fatty acid alkyl esters (FAAE) or a mixture of FAAA and FAAE; 2)     Recovers the FAAA, FAME, or mixture of FAAA and FAME from the reaction medium; and 3)     Converts any FAAE in the recovered portion also to FAAA by reacting the FAAE in the recovered portion in a second step. Value proposition: Advantages over existing strategies include: Methods described circumvent solvent-based recovery and purification of FAG or FAME prior to conversion to FAAA resulting in fewer unit operations Algal lipids are either directly converted to FAAAs or first converted to FAME, which is recoverable as a separate phase. Methods described use recyclable catalysts and can be operated under mild conditions. Reliably recover > 95% of the total lipid in the biomass. Methods of isolating the product from the reaction mixture.

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