Biodiesel Byproduct Converted Into Omega-3 Fatty Acids By Virginia Tech Researcher

�The typical American diet often lacks omega-3 roly-poly acids despite clinical research that shows their potency human health benefits. Zhiyou Wen, help professor of biological systems engineering in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, found a way to grow these compounds using a byproduct of the emerging biodiesel industry. He presented his findings at the 236th national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Philadelphia, Pa.



"High energy prices have light-emitting diode to an increase in biodiesel production, which in turn has led to an gain in the amount of crude glycerin in the market," aforementioned Wen, wHO explained that biodiesel plants leave behind approximately 10 percent primitive glycerol during the production process.



This has led the price of glycerol, a chemical compound widely used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, to drop in recent years. The rise in biodiesel production over the last x means that the market can no longer absorb all the extra glycerol. Biodiesel producers must find oneself alternative substance for disposing of crude glycerol, which is prohibitively expensive to purify for industry utilization. Wen and his colleagues have developed a novel fermentation march using microalgae to bring about omega-3 roly-poly acids from crude glycerol



"We have shown that it is possible to use the earthy glycerol byproduct from the biodiesel industry as a carbon source for microalgae that bring about omega-3 butterball acids," aforesaid Wen, wHO added that the impurities in blunt glycerol may actually be beneficial to algal increment. "After thorough chemical analysis, we experience also shown that the algae biomass composition has the same quality as the commercial algae product."



After growing the algae in the primitive glycerol, researchers can manipulation it as an creature feed. This mimics a process in nature in which fish, the virtually common reservoir of omega-3 fatty acidulent for man, eat the algae and then hold the healthful compounds in their bodies. Humans wHO consume the fish in turn have the omega 3s. Fish-derived products such as pisces oil ar an cheap alternative, just the taste has deterred widespread use.



Wen has partnered with Steven Craig, aged research scientist at Virginia Cobia Farms, to role crude glycerol-derived algae as a pisces feed. "The results so far have been promising," Wen aforementioned. "The fish fed the algae had significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acid fatty acids."



He and Audrey McElroy, comrade professor of animal and poultry sciences, are now trying to determine whether the algae would work as a chicken course. Kumar Mallikarjunan, associate professor of biological systems engine room, is besides working with Wen to determine the fate of omega 3s after they enter the food furnish. Researchers do not up to now know whether oxidation would have a major impact on omega-3 fatty acids stored in cheese, for example.



Funding for this inquiry has come from the Virginia Agricultural Council, U.S. Poultry and Egg Association, Fats and Proteins Research Foundation, Virginia Sea Grant, and Virginia Commercial Fisheries and Shellfish Technologies.



Wen presented his newspaper, "Production of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid from biodiesel-waste glycerol by microalgal zymolysis (AGFD 272)," as a part of a sitting sponsored by the ACS Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.



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