THERE HAS BEEN a virtual explosion in the research, development and production of bio-chemicals from corn in the past decade. Concerns about escalating oil prices, dwindling oil supplies, the environment and health are some of the driving forces in the move to develop bio-chemicals from corn. 

“There are many opportunities to make products that Ontario currently imports,” says Dr. Dennis Miller, a professor of Chemical Engineering at Michigan State University.

Dr. Miller co-wrote Bio-chemicals from Corn: Developing a Bio-chemical Industry Based on Corn in Ontario -- Update 2008, released last November.  His cowriter is Brian Doidge, retired professor from Ridgetown College.

Ontario imports one hundred percent of its oil and natural gas feedstocks for fuels, plastics and other products so Miller and Doidge believe there is huge potential to develop bio-chemicals from corn here. “These are green processes and Ontario could gain independence from having to import these chemicals. This will become even more economical when oil prices go up again,” explains Miller.

Triethyl citrate is one of these bio-chemicals with excellent potential to be produced from corn here in Ontario. Triethyl citrate is a replacement for dioctyl phthalate (DOP), a petroleum derivative used to soften polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and other plastics used in children’s toys. In 2005, the European Union banned DOP due to health concerns says Miller. “The opportunity to replace it with a non-toxic, “green” plasticizer such as triethyl citrate is attractive.” 

Producing triethyl citrate in Ontario is both technically and economically feasible says Doidge. Using an economic program developed at Michigan State University that included the cost of the raw materials, equipment, utilities, labour, taxes and return on investment, the estimated cost of production was US $1.05 per pound.“This reflects the price the product must be sold at in order to have a profitable process,” explains Miller. With a price on the open market of US $2.30 per pound, at the time the report was written, triethyl citrate production would be lucrative.

Triethyl citrate is made from two corn-based feedstocks, ethanol and citric acid (widely used in the soft drink industry), already readily available here in Ontario adds Doidge. In addition, Triethyl citrate could be made at existing ethanol plants in Ontario says Doidge. This would make use of the existing infrastructure and capital investment enabling the ethanol plants to diversify at a time when there has been a decline in demand for ethanol and profit margins have been squeezed.

Made by a process known as reactive distillation, triethyl citrate is formed and purified in a single piece of process equipment. In a reactive distillation column, water, the byproduct of the reaction, is continuously removed from the process as it is formed. “The reaction continues to completion in an efficient manner,” says Miller.

In addition to triethyl citrate, Doidge and Miller highlighted two dozen bio-chemicals from a possible list of 300 chemicals with the most potential to be made from corn based on chemical data, known market data and the complexity of the manufacturing process. Unfortunately, Canada has been slow to develop biotechnology for industrial applications as a result of preferential tax treatment for research and development in the medicine and pharmaceutical sectors and an innate industrial inertia of continuing reliance on fossil-fuel based industrial applications due to reliance on Western natural gas and oil sands says the report*.

“The thrust will have to come from existing Ontario ethanol producers and wet corn millers who recognize the threats and the opportunities in the immediate future as well as from the downstream users,” says the report. “Otherwise Canadian companies may be left producing petroleum-based commodity products that compete only on price at a time when environmental pressures are growing and competition from low-wage countries is increasing,” conclude Doidge and Miller.

* For more information about Canada’s policy environment see the feature story for May/June 2009:  Corn takes Centre Stage.