As a
vacuum lubricant, I believe you can sell phytane for 50$/100g because alkanes tend to be good lubricants while silicones behave badly under high shear, that is, they don't lubricate.
So just start your company and begin selling for that use.
When your process improves and costs decrease, sell farnesane and phytane as a
hydraulic fluid for aeroplanes. As they stay liquid at -70°C and aren't flammable at >> +55°C, you can sell 100kg for >1000usd. Same kind of price as a computer coolant, though each customer may take a smaller amount.
Shrinking the cost further, sell it as a better
transformer oil that lasts longer: no multiple bonds, hard to flame, good at cold. In special uses (Arctic, oil platforms...) sell 1000kg for about 10k$.
As a
rocket fuel, it depends. I spent thoughts at it because it's perfect for a Mars lander. This needs 10t a few times, for 1M$ each if this makes the lander more reliable (-100°C have been observed on Mars, and nonflammable is nice too). But replacing "kerosene" on a first stage would be difficult: consider <1M$ for 100t.
Jet fuel comes last, when your process runs perfectly in wagon amounts, and I doubt about that. Sell 100t for 100k$.
So yes, I was surprised too that Amyris targeted jet fuel as their first use, and understand too that they changed their mind. A tiny company may be able to live from vacuum lubricant, a less small one from hydraulic fluids and transformer oil.
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Synthesis: a strict alkane is more difficult. As a rocket fuel, a nitrogen at each node eases the production
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=56069.msg254340#msg254340Farnesane has a very abnormal freezing point (and phytane even more so). After many comparisons, this seems to need branches every fourth carbon error-free (or every second one, as 2,4,6-trimethyl-dodecane and tridecane are excellent too). Many isomers and an asymmetric molecule are said to count too, so that CC and CCC as head and tail may improve over C and CC. The regular assembly is exactly what biology does through the pyrophosphate route.
The oligomerization of isoprene was studied in the 70's.
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=56069.msg203815#msg203815If you access the papers, maybe they have a good catalyst to achieve head-to-tail assembly of isoprene. Anything else would be bad.
A different approach: natural rubber has already the desired patterns, only too long, and possibly with too few isomers. If you can cut the chain
precisely, you win. Beware pristane, with one carbon less than phytane, is unhealthy.
The dirt-cheap
myrcene is easily hydrogenated to 2,6-dimethyloctane whose dimer is phytane (do you really need farnesane?)... but how? Brominate one terminal carbon, separate the two useful monobromos from the rest, then make a Grignard reagent from one, react with the other? Very obscure to me.