Method to Reduce Biofuel Costs by 80 Percent Developed
Method to Reduce Biofuel Costs by 80 Percent Developed
  • Korea IT Times
  • 승인 2011.05.30 09:42
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The research team at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University has developed a method that can reduce biofuel production costs by 80 percent through removing key obstacles to producing the clean fuel by reprogramming microbes.

"The real costs involved in any biofuel production are harvesting the goodies and turning them into fuel. The whole system that we have developed is a means to a green recovery of materials not requiring energy dependent physical or chemical processes," said Roy Curtiss, a professor in the School of Life Sciences.

The research team, along with Mr. Curtiss, has been focusing on optimizing photosynthetic microbes - called Cyanobacteria - as renewable source of biofuels. Cyanobacteria, a microbe dependent on sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide for growth, have a tough, protective membrane that helps them thrive in harsh surroundings. This membrane also makes it difficult to extract the high-energy fats contained in the organisms that can be used for biofuel.

By reprogramming photosynthetic microbes to secrete high-energy fats, byproduct recovery and conversion to biofuels are easier and potentially more commercially viable. Because of this development, the process of harvesting fats from microbes, which requires additional steps where most of the cost comes in, can be reduced. Total renewable biofuel production costs are estimated to be reduced by 70 to 80 percent using the researcher's method.

To get the microbe to release their high fat cargo, Mr. Curtiss and postdoctoral researcher Xinyao Liu placed a suite of genes into the bacteria that produce enzymes to degrade the membrane lipids, thus releasing the fatty acids. In addition, through reprogramming of the cells, the enzymes are produced only after the carbon dioxide is removed from their environment.

"We first freed up fatty acids by triggering self-destruction of the bacteria by adding nickel. So, this time, we did it in a smarter way - by stopping carbon dioxide supply. The strategy of adding nothing for recovering fuels from biomass is designed to drastically reduce processing costs," said Mr. Liu.

Through the course of its research, the team tested out lipases, or fat-degrading enzymes. They discovered that lipases are able to clip off fatty acids from photosynthetic membranes like molecular scissors. The team also tested out variables such as the cell culture density of the microbes, light intensity and agitation of the cultures to optimize the growth conditions of their green recovery method.

The team now plans to test their findings in a large-scale photobioreactors to optimally capture the free fatty acids. The reactors are being designed by the engineers in the institute's Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology. Through this, they hope to achieve developments of a new, economical, environmentally friendly, and carbon-neutral source of biofuels. This development in the Arizona State University could help sever costs of biofuel production in the future, especially when there are projections on the increased costs in biomass.

In the study made by the University of Illinois, they found that between 600 and 900 million metric tons of biomass could be produced in 2030 to meet biofuel needs. However, they estimated that prices could reach $140 per metric ton, based on 2007 dollars.

Similar to the Arizona State University's research, a team at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory experimented on Aspergillus niger. They studied the fungus because A. niger is known to be capable of producing enzymes that can degrade plant cell wall - much like membrane lipid-degrading enzymes of the researchers at Arizona. (L.J. Polintan).

Source: Apec-vc


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