Recent Achievements in the Production of Biobased 1,3-Propanediol

The increasing concerns related to the high prices and limited availability of fossil fuels have led to a remarkable growth of biodiesel industry in recent years. This, in turn resulted in the accumulation of high quantities of crude glycerol as a by-product of the transesterification reaction. It is indeed estimated that the production of 100 kg of biodiesel results in the production of 10 kg of crude glycerol. The obtained crude glycerol by-products could be purified and further used in several processes, but this purification process is costly. The biorefinery concept, i.e. the exploitation of wastes or by-products for the obtainment of high-value products, has been then considered as an interesting alternative strategy for the valorisation of this by-product. In this context, several fine chemicals, among which is 1,3-propanediol, are produced from biodiesel-derived raw glycerol feedstock. In this chapter, we report on recent achievements in the production of 1,3-propanediol from biodiesel-derived crude glycerol including a detailed literature review on the biotechnological processes developed and the strategies employed for yield improvement. The bottlenecks of these biorefinery processes are also discussed.