CHILLICOTHE, Ill. – An update on current research and development of bio-oils and other plant-based products being conducted at the flagship Peoria USDA Ag Lab was offered by Dr. DeMichael D. Winfield, Ph.D., USDA bio-oils research group chemist. Peoria’s Ag Lab, officially known as the USDA Agricultural Research Service’s National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (NCAUR), is famous for developing and mass-producing penicillin, along with products such as Dextran, Xanthan gum, high fructose corn syrup and soy-based inks.

Updates on the development of plant-based estolide motor oil, epoxy resins and commercial hardeners were given by Winfield, who joined NCAUR’s bio-oils research team in 2023. His current projects include utilizing new crops and bio-based feedstocks as lubricants, biodiesel, polymer and polymer additives. Another area of his research is developing “green,” metal-free synthetic methods that are competitive with traditional industrial methods.

“We’re looking at sustainable bioproducts and trying to take existing technologies or invent bioproducts from agricultural by-products. Trying to make new, sustainable, environmentally friendly, acceptable-value end products is kind of our larger goal,” said Winfield, who took his NCAUR expertise on the road to speak to a book club at the Chillicothe Public Library June 30 about developing NCAUR technologies.

“A lot of the products we use every day are derived from petroleum. This is somewhat of a pressing issue; there is roughly 50 years (worth) of viable petroleum left in the world. That number is debated, but most everyone agrees that within the next 100 years we will be looking at the end of petroleum.”

Prompted by this sense of urgency, NCAUR scientists and researchers – including Winfield – have been working for more than two decades to develop agricultural oilseed crops for use in biofuels using a number of non-traditional crops, including pennycress. This research, originated by retired NCAUR chemist Dr. Terry Isbell in the early 2000s, is ongoing.

“The goal of our research unit is twofold: converting plant oils into industrial products such as food oils, and also we look at products from new crops,” Winfield said. “What are some new potential crops we can introduce into the farming ecosystem? What benefits can farmers and the environment get from them? And, also, how can we use them to make something useful?”

With 31 percent of all soybean oil produced in Illinois used for biofuels, biodiesel research has been a forte of the Peoria Ag Lab for many more years than Winfield has been on staff. The young research chemist noted that unlike the early years of biofuels development, “Big Oil” now seems to be supportive of biodiesel as an additive to regular diesel fuel.

NCAUR’s work with the winter annual pennycress – along with research done at Illinois State University, Western Illinois University and elsewhere – led to the commercialization of the crop by CoverCress, a St. Louis-based company that is working to provide planting-to-market pipelines for Midwest growers of pennycress as a winter cover and cash crop.

“This is a winter cash cover crop that provides both an environmental benefit (soil enrichment and stability), a land management benefit and an economic benefit,” Winfield said.

Plant-based lubricants are among the new technologies Winfield and his colleagues are seeking to convert into marketable consumer products. “Compared to your petroleum-based lubricants, vegetable oils are biodegradable, have good lubrication properties but do have higher costs associated with them. This is a really big market and a really big issue. There is a lot of petroleum-based lubrication waste rinsed out into the oceans and the natural environment,” he said.

For that reason, NCAUR is stepping up its small-scale testing of potential bio-based lubricant sources. Pennycress oil as a lubricant source scored high in tests of durability conducted at the lab, with pennycress derivatives showing better lubricity on metal parts than petroleum-derived lubricants.

A new product developed for commercialization in the NCAUR bio-oils laboratory, BioSynthetic Technologies’ estolide-based motor oil, is now available in auto parts stores and online on Amazon and elsewhere. “This is one of the applications we’ve been focusing a lot on,” he said. “The benefit of these oils is that if they were to find their way into the environment it would eventually biodegrade,” Winfield said.

Turning vegetable oils into epoxy resins and plastics is another current research area for Winfield. He displayed a number of finished products to the library patrons including a set of hard plastic cutlery, along with a sample of a bio-based rubber compound under development. “We’re essentially taking vegetable oils and turning them into epoxides, and making new epoxy resins. These can be partially or completely bio-based. We’ve been looking at using soybean oil as a replacement for current epoxy products, many of which are dangerous to the environment,” he said.

To learn more about NCAUR research, visit https://www.ars.usda.gov/midwest-area/peoria-il/national-center-for-agricultural-utilization-research/.