Irvine, Calif.-based Biosynthetic Technologies is working with Albemarle and Jacobs Engineering on a pilot plant in Baton Rouge, La. A full scale plant is planned later in Houston. The pilot plant is expected to be online in spring 2013, and the full scale plant will begin construction around the same time, with completion in later 2014, Biosynthetic Technologies CEO Allen Barbieri told Lube Report.

Monsanto of St. Louis developed its Vistive Gold brand soybeans to improve soybean oils oxidative stability and reduced saturated fat. The improved oil provides benefits in both food and industrial applications. Were doing a lot of collaboration with Monsanto, outside of just the investment itself, Barbieri said.

He explained that Biosynthetic Technologies takes fatty acid from anything high in oleic acid, which can include canola, palm and soybean oil, as well as animal tallow. We take those vegetable oils – standard natural triglycerides – and we break them down into their individual fatty acids, Barbieri said. Then we reconfigure those fatty acids through a catalyst-driven chemical reaction into a new molecule. That new molecule has a structure that really has most of the characteristics of, basically, a [polyalphaolefin] from a lubricant standpoint. He claimed the molecules performance characteristics in areas such as oxidative stability and hydrolytic stability have been shown to be better than in API Group III base oil and PAO.

He described the pilot plants process as a continuous flow chemical reaction process. Unlike the living organism type base oils – which is what people are trying to do with algae or fermentation – we actually are able to use off-the-shelf equipment that you find in any chemical plant, and we introduced the fatty acids through a reactor with a catalyst, Barbieri explained. While we have patents on it, its not a proprietary catalyst so its readily available. Were able to make this in a continuous flow process where we really dont have any byproducts at the end. Developed in a lab, the process is expected to go into the pilot plant, and then later into a commercial manufacturing plant, which he said will be a production line inside an existing large chemical companys plant in Houston.

Our business model is to make a biobased synthetic base oil, and sell it as a base oil manufacturer, Barbieri said. Our pricing, at production at commercial scale, will be less than PAO and probably more than Group III. Its going to be someplace in the middle there.

The first finished lubricant products containing the biosynthetic base oil are expected to hit the market in 2013, Barbieri said. Several of the worlds largest manufacturers of automotive and industrial lubricants are now formulating and certifying finished bio-based products containing the companys biosynthetic base oil.

According to Barbieri, some unique properties to its biosynthetic base oil include Noack volatility test evaporation loss considerably lower than for any other base oil, and a viscosity index higher than that of almost all petroleum base oils.

Were very close to an [American Petroleum Institute] SN certification on several fronts, he said. So far all engine testing done shows it performs incredibly well, and is competitive with the base oils on the market. In addition to that, were working with a lot of industrial lubricant manufacturers who are developing greases and gear oils, and hydraulic fluids. The product is non-toxic, biodegradable, and bio-based, so where somebody needs an application that is environmentally friendly, certainly were able to be a drop in replacement for any petroleum product theyre using.

He said the biosynthetic base oil also blends well with petroleum-based products. Many of the people formulating with our product are just blending it, anywhere from 20 percent to 70 percent, a co-blend with a Group III or in some cases PAO, Barbieri noted.