The Southeast Partnership for Advanced Renewables from Carinata (SPARC) is a USDA Coordinated Agriculture Project (CAP) with the University of Florida in partnership with Applied Research Associates, Inc., Nuseed, and other Universities. The twofold mission of this partnership is to remove barriers for commercialization of Brassica carinata for renewable fuels and coproducts and demonstrate enhanced value across the entire supply chain. ARA’s role in this partnership is to demonstrate technology that converts carinata oil into jet and diesel fuels and to evaluate technology for production of valuable coproducts. Carinata oil is rich in the C22 fatty acid, erucic acid. The erucic acid can be recovered from the renewable fuels process and converted to fatty esters, fatty alcohols, or paraffin waxes. Erucic acid can also be converted to brassylic acid, a C13 diacid, which is a precursor to the synthesis of nylon 1313. The fuels conversion process also produces many renewable n-paraffin, cycloparaffin, and aromatic compounds, which can be recovered for multiple applications. The jet fuel produced by ARA technology was recently approved for commercial use by ASTM International as Annex 6 to ASTM D7566, the specification for Aviation Turbine Fuels Containing Synthesized Hydrocarbons.
