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Tobacco is an ideal crop for biobased products. It can produce many safe, beneficial products, despite its association with smoking. Tobacco produces both high-value products and an enormous amount of biomass which can be converted into food products or industrial raw materials. Tobacco produces more biomass than virtually any other agricultural crop.
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High Value Proteins
Tobacco naturally produces high value proteins in large quantities, with a nutritional profile comparable or superior to many other protein sources. In addition, there is evidence that tobacco proteins are non-allergenic. Tobacco proteins also have many desirable characteristics, such as good gelling and emulsifying properties, which make them ideal for a wide range of purposes.
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Industrial Raw Materials
Tobacco naturally produces large volumes of starches and sugars. These starches and sugars are valuable both in the food ingredients industry and as industrial raw materials which can replace petroleum products.
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Specialty Products
Tobacco produces many complex chemicals with potential high-value niche uses. For example, nicotine is used as a natural insecticide.
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Cellulosic Materials
About one quarter of the tobacco plant is cellulosic material. Technologies for efficiently converting this material to ethanol are rapidly advancing. Tobacco biomass appears attractive for conversion to ethanol because it contains very low amounts of the hard-to-convert woody material lignin.
Cultivation of tobacco for biomass is very different from conventional tobacco. While conventional tobacco production is labor-intensive, biomass tobacco is largely mechanized. Thus, production costs are substantially reduced. The plants are grown much more closely together. And for biomass tobacco, it is possible to obtain multiple harvests in a single season from a single crop of tobacco – the plants will regrow following a harvest!
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