Polyhydroxyalkanoate production in crops

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are biodegradable polyesters produced by microorganisms as intracellular energy reserves The metabolic pathway from these microorganisms can be bioengineered into a variety of plants for making PHAs While this new scheme is not yet commercial, it may have the potential for large scale manufacture at very low cost Numerous challenges, both technical and non-technical, are associated with commercializing this technology One is to achieve a high level of polymer production in the plant without a decrease in crop yield Another is to economically recover the polymer from the plant biomass There are also barriers associated with utilization of agricultural infrastructure for production of industrial products This paper presents an analysis of the process economics for producing PHAs in agricultural crops such as soybean or switchgrass The economics are compared to those for PHA production by E coli fermentation.