Pennycress Product Development & Preliminary Business Case - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Pennycress Product Development & Preliminary Business Case

Alberta Agriculture & Rural Development Kwesi Ampong-Nyarko April 2010 for Peace Region Economic Development Alliance

What is the Bio-based Economy

• The bio-based economy is a vision of a future society no longer wholly

dependent on fossil fuels for energy and industrial raw materials.

• Bio-fuels (like ethanol and diesel) made directly from agricultural crops, will

become increasingly competitive

• Fossil fuels are used as industrial feedstocks, to produce chemicals,

plastics etc. Most of this use could, over time, be replaced by biomass - starch, straw etc - fermented and converted to a vast range of materials using enzymes or micro-organisms developed specially for the task.

Biodiesel Driving Forces

• The federal government mandate requiring an annual

renewable content of two percent in diesel by 2012 is creating demand for vegetable oil for biodiesel production.

• Most current biodiesel processes use edible oils as the
• il feedstock.
• To meet this demand and deal with the concerns

regarding food, non-food sources of non food source of vegetable oil have to be found.

Pennycress

• Contains 36% oil in the

seed.

• Contains a glucosinolate

which has potential as a herbicide

• Producing where most

crops fail

Surface 2.5cm deep 100 200 300 400

Spring Winter Number of seedlings

250 500 750 1000 1250 1500 1750 2000 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Day0 Day28 Gibberellic acid (ppm) Seeds germinated (%)

Evaluate the economic feasibility of combine harvesting of wild stands of pennycress using conventional combines

Location Yield/kg/ha Bushels/acre Rycroft 2283.3 46.8 High Prairie (E) 2288.5 47.1 High Prairie (R) 2506.0 51.4 Edmonton Farmer's Field 3098.3 63.6 CDC North Winter 2588.3 53.1

Seedlings that emerge in the fall overwinter as a rosette and flower early in the growing season

• It takes advantage of spring

snow melt

• is competitive against weeds

and thus

• ffers option to produce

pennycress as a low input crop

Pennycress growing on 31 March 2010

Control Pennycress Corn gluten 10 20 30 40 50 60

White Cockle Cow cockle Green foxtail Lamb's-quarters Stinkweed Downy brome Redroot pigweed Dandelion Common groundsel Number of plants

Crop safety to pennycress meal

• Pennycress meal as herbicides can be applied as

preplant incorporated (applied before planting,

• mixed into the soil), pre-emergence
• (applied to soil before plant/weed emergence), post-

emergence (applied after crop emergence)

• Timing of application can also impact herbicide

selectivity.

• the time when the target organism is introduced to the

glucosinolate-containing medium.

Canola

10 20 30 40 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160

0 kg/m2 2 kg/m2 4 kg/m2 8 kg/m2 Days Seedling emergence (%)

Tomato

10 20 30 40 25 50 75 100 125 150 175

0 kg/m2 2 kg/m2 4 kg/m2 8 kg/m2 Days Seedling emergence (%)

Pennycress meal nutrient analysis

• Per cent nitrogen ranged 3.97 -4.17 % and P

0.70-0.76 %.

• Total organic carbon in the two samples was

5.16 and 56.2 % respectively.

• Organic matter was 56.5% and 59.5%.
• The ph ranged between 5.1 to 5.4

Pennycress oil

• The maximum pennycress meal oil content (excluding

residual oil in meal) was 29.28%

• The oil in canola was 43.7%.
• Residual oil was 9.66%.
• Allyl glucosinolate content varied from 146.0 µmoles/g to

184.8 µmoles/g.

• Fatty acid composition Erucic (38.89 wt %), linoleic

(20.81 wt %), and linolenic (12.53 wt %)

• The amount of saturated fatty acid in pennycress was

low 3.5 1 wt% mainly palmitic acid.

Pennycress oil - Cold Weather Performance

• Pennycress oil exhibited a desirable low temperature

fluidity, as indicated by cloud point (CP) value of >-15. In the literature the actual measured value −28 ◦C.

• Based on these results, it is expected that pennycress oil

would be better suited for industrial applications where sub-ambient conditions are prevalent.

• The relatively low level of saturated fatty acid contained

in pennycress oil (4.6 wt%)

Achievement

• Pennycress was originally classified as a class 3 weed by the CFIA.

The project submitted a science advice to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on the benefits of pennycress as a crop. As a result, pennycress is no more classified as weed because.

• Pennycress is also no longer listed as a weed in the Provincial

Weed Act.

• Recognized as potential Feed stock promoted the scientific

merits of using pennycress as a feedstock. Pennycress is now considered as one of the potential sources of feedstock along side yellow grease and tallow, off-grade canola seed and camelina.

Advantages of using Pennycress as feedstock for biodiesel

• 1. Low break-even cost crop requiring none or little inputs

(pesticides)

• 2. It is a winter annual
• 3. It can be grown on marginal lands
• 4. Non-food source of oil
• 5. Capability to serve in rotational crop cycles (short

duration crop)

• 6. Cold filter plugging point Pennycress oil exhibited a

desirable low temperature fluidity, as indicated by cloud point value −280C.

Cropping System

• Strictly a winter annual
• Alternate Crop
• seeding delayed into June, we have an extra short-

season crop that matures in 80 days

• Rotation with winter cereal
• Winter pennycress - Winter pennycress - winter

pennycress – winter cereal

Pennycress Industry Development Model

• The final biodiesel composition depends on the initial

feedstock

• Substitution among fats and oils of different

feedstocks

• Feedstocks can account for more than seventy percent
• f the total cost of producing biodiesel
• Hence feedstock cost and availability are very important

in determining the feasibility of a biodiesel industry

Biodiesel Reaction

Vegetable Oil or Animal Fat (100 lbs.) + Methanol or Ethanol (10 lbs.) Biodiesel (100 lbs.) + Glycerin (10 lbs.)

In the presence of a catalyst (Sodium hydroxide, Potassium hydroxide Combining Yields

Oil extraction Pennycress seed Production Oil Meal Transesterfication Saponification Lubricants Bio-fumigation Bio-pesticide Amendments and Fertilizers Glycerin Biofuel Polypropel glycol, acrolein, animal feed

Pennycress: A first generation Biorefinery

High value molecules, eg glucosinolates, myrosinase, enzyme effectors Animal Feed

Example of canola vs. pennycress as feedstock for I000 kg

Attribute Canola Pennycress Oil yield (%)@ $0.50/litre 40.3 =$201.5 30 =$150.0 Meal value ($)/T) 200.00 100.00 Total revenue ($) 401.5 250.0 Cost of seed /tonne 420.00 268.5 Profit

• 18.5
• 18.5

Project Net revenue from crops in 2010

Crop Price/bu Yield/bu /acre Gross Income ($) Cost ($) Net Revenue ($) Pennycress $3.75 - 5.53 40 150 -221 70 $60-$130 Camelina $6.73/bu 25 168.25 80 88.25 HRS wheat $5.36 /bu 35 187.60 100 87.60 Durum $4.79 /bu 40 191.6 100 91.60 Peas $4.85 /bu 35 169.75 100 69.75 Canola $8.76 /bu 25 219.00 150 69.00 Feed barley $3.00 /bu 50 150.00 100 50.00

Sensitivity analysis of pennycress as feedstock for 40 bushel (789 kg)/acre

$0.60/litre $0.50/litre $0.40/litre $0.30/litre Meal value ($0.10/kg) per acre 79.0 79.0 79.0 79.0 Oil value 142.0 118.0 94.7.0 71.01 Total revenue 221.0 197.0 173.7 150.0 Crush prod ($) 20.0 20.0 20.0 20.0 Price/kg seed (revenue from

• ne acre

$0.28 =$130 $0.25 $107.2 $0.22 $83.0 $0.19 =$60

Acknowledgments

• Lesser Slave Lake Economic Alliance

– Greg Radstaak – Alvin Billings

• Peace Region Economic Development Alliance

– Bob Hall – Jack O’Toole

• All Peace Industries Inc

– Stan Peacock – Marion Peacock

• Olds College

– Tanya McDonald – Abimbola Abiola

• Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development

– Zhixiong Zhang – Yingli Wang