Industrial chemicals and materials are currently derived mainly from fossil-based raw materials, which are declining in availability, increasing in price and are a major source of undesirable greenhouse gas emissions. Plant oils have the potential to provide functionally equivalent, renewable and environmentally friendly replacements for these finite fossil-based raw materials, provided that their composition can be matched to end-use requirements, and that they can be produced on sufficient scale to meet current and growing industrial demands. Replacement of 40% of the fossil oil used in the chemical industry with renewable plant oils, whilst ensuring that growing demand for food oils is also met, will require a trebling of global plant oil production from current levels of around 139 MT to over 400 MT annually. Realisation of this potential will rely on application of plant biotechnology to (i) tailor plant oils to have high purity (preferably >90%) of single desirable fatty acids, (ii) introduce unusual fatty acids that have specialty end-use functionalities and (iii) increase plant oil production capacity by increased oil content in current oil crops, and conversion of other high biomass crops into oil accumulating crops. This review outlines recent progress and future challenges in each of these areas. Practical applications: The research reviewed in this paper aims to develop metabolic engineering technologies to radically increase the yield and alter the fatty acid composition of plant oils and enable the development of new and more productive oil crops that can serve as renewable sources of industrial feedstocks currently provided by non-renewable and polluting fossil-based resources. As a result of recent and anticipated research developments we can expect to see significant enhancements in quality and productivity of oil crops over the coming decades. This should generate the technologies needed to support increasing plant oil production into the future, hopefully of sufficient magnitude to provide a major supply of renewable plant oils for the industrial economy without encroaching on the higher priority demand for food oils. Achievement of this goal will make a significant contribution to moving to a sustainable carbon-neutral industrial society with lower emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and reduced environmental impact as a result.

中文翻译：

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用新鲜油代替化石油 - 用什么和为了什么？

工业化学品和材料目前主要来自化石原料，这些原料的供应量正在下降，价格正在上涨，并且是不良温室气体排放的主要来源。植物油有潜力为这些有限的基于化石的原材料提供功能等效、可再生和环保的替代品，前提是它们的成分可以满足最终用途的要求，并且可以以足够的规模生产以满足当前和不断增长的工业需求。用可再生植物油替代化学工业中使用的 40% 的化石油，同时确保满足对食用油不断增长的需求，这将需要将全球植物油产量从目前的 139 吨左右增加到 400 多吨每年。这种潜力的实现将依赖于植物生物技术的应用，以 (i) 定制植物油以具有高纯度 (优选 >90%) 的单一所需脂肪酸，(ii) 引入具有特殊最终用途功能的不寻常脂肪酸和 ( iii) 通过增加现有油料作物的含油量以及将其他高生物量作物转化为储油作物来提高植物油生产能力。本综述概述了这些领域的最新进展和未来挑战。实际应用：本文综述的研究旨在开发代谢工程技术，从根本上提高植物油的产量和改变植物油的脂肪酸组成，并使新的和更高产的油料作物的开发成为可能，这些作物可以作为目前由非农业提供的工业原料的可再生来源。 - 可再生和污染化石资源。由于近期和预期的研究进展，我们可以预期未来几十年油料作物的质量和生产力将显着提高。这应该会产生支持未来增加植物油产量所需的技术，希望有足够的规模为工业经济提供可再生植物油的主要供应，而不会侵犯对食用油的更高优先级的需求。