Biofene, a renewable monomer for elastomer materials with novel properties: Polymer development, characterization and use

Amyris has modified the common yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (baker's yeast) to produce vast quantities of the hydrocarbon trans-βfarnesene. Amyris has created a strain that instead converts the sugar into Biofene via 21 stereoselective enzymatic steps, some native and some heterologous to the host strain. Amyris has partnered with Kuraray to develop high performance polymers based on trans-β farnesene. The first product that Kuraray has developed during this collaboration is liquid farnesene rubber (LFR). Liquid rubber materials are colorless, transparent and almost completely odorless, and they have melt viscosities ranging from 1.5 to 1,500 Pa-s at 38 °C. The first application that LFR has been tested in is as a plasticizer additive in tire formulations, where it shows unique and improved performance. When trans-βfarnesene is used in hydrogenated block copolymers to make HSFC, a new polymer family is created which has unique and advantaged performance and offers the opportunity to broaden the range of applications for this class of materials.