Soon we will be able to replace fossil fuels with a carbon-neutral product created from solar energy, carbon dioxide and water. Researchers at Uppsala University have successfully produced microorganisms that can efficiently produce the alcohol butanol using carbon dioxide and solar energy, without needing to use solar cells.
This has been presented in a new study published in the scientific journal Energy & Environmental Science.
Pia Lindberg, Senior Lecturer at the Department of
– We have systematically designed and created a series of modified cyanobacteria that gradually produced increasing quantities of butanol in direct processes. When the best cells are used in long-term laboratory experiments, we see levels of production that exceed levels that have been reported in existing articles. Furthermore, it is comparable with indirect processes where bacteria are fed with sugar, says Pia Lindberg, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University.
The knowledge and ability to modify cyanobacteria so they can produce a variety of chemicals from carbon dioxide and solar energy is emerging in parallel with advances in technology, synthetic biology, genetically changing them. Through a combination of technical development, systematic methods and the discovery that as more product removed from the cyanobacteria, the more butanol is formed, the study shows the way forward for realising the concept.
We already know it is possible to produce butanol using this process (proof-of-concept). What researchers have now been able to show is that it is possible to achieve significantly higher production, so high that it becomes possible to use in production. In practical terms, butanol can be used in the automotive industry as both an environmentally friendly vehicle fuel – fourth generation biofuel – and as an environmentally friendly component of rubber for tyres. In both cases, fossil fuels are replaced by a carbon-neutral product created from solar energy, carbon dioxide and water.
Even larger industries, in all trades, that currently produce high greenhouse gas emissions from carbon dioxide will be able to use the process with cyanobacteria to bind carbon dioxide and consequently significantly reduce their emissions.
Peter Lindblad, Professor at the Department of
– Microscopic cyanobacteria are the most efficient photosynthetic organisms on earth. In this study, we utilise their ability to efficiently capture the sun’s energy and bind to carbon dioxide in the air, alongside with all the tools we have to modify cyanobacteria to produce desirable products. The results show that a direct production of carbon-neutral chemicals and fuels from solar energy will be a possibility in the future, explains Peter Lindblad, Professor at the Department of Chemistry Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University who is leading the project.
Research at Uppsala University is part of the larger EU Photofuel project (www.photofuel.eu) being coordinated by vehicle manufacturer VW whose aim is to develop the next generation of techniques for sustainable manufacture of alternative fuels in the transport sector.
The article Modular Engineering for Photosynthetic 1-Butanol Production in Cyanobacteria was published in Energy & Environmental Science, doi.org/10.1039/C9EE01214A
ChrissiMinxx on July 27th, 2019 at 02:39 UTC »
So...we’re basically using microorganisms the way humans were used in The Matrix?
Emmison on July 26th, 2019 at 22:39 UTC »
Should we get excited?
mvea on July 26th, 2019 at 21:58 UTC »
The title of the post is a copy and paste from the title and subtitle of the linked academic press release here:
Journal Reference:
Xufeng Liu, Rui Miao, Pia Lindberg, Peter Lindblad.
Modular Engineering for Efficient Photosynthetic Biosynthesis of 1-Butanol from CO2 in Cyanobacteria.
Energy & Environmental Science, 2019;
Link: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2019/EE/C9EE01214A#!divAbstract
DOI: 10.1039/C9EE01214A
Abstract
Cyanobacteria are photoautotrophic microorganisms which can be engineered to directly convert CO2 and water into biofuels and chemicals via photosynthesis using sunlight as energy. However, product titers and rates are main challenges that need to be overcome for industrial applications. Here we present a systematic modular engineering of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis PCC 6803, enabling efficient biosynthesis of 1-butanol, an attractive commodity chemical and gasoline substitute. Through introducing and re-casting the 1-butanol biosynthetic pathway at gene and enzyme levels, optimizing the 5’-regions of expression units for tuning transcription and translation, rewiring carbon flux and rewriting the photosynthetic central carbon metabolism to enhance the precursor supply, and performing process development, we were able to reach a cumulative 1-butanol titer of 4.8 g∙L-1 with a maximal rate of 302 mg∙L-1∙day-1 from the engineered Synechocystis. This represents the highest 1-butanol production from CO2 reported so far. Our multi-level modular strategy for high-level production of chemicals and advanced biofuels represents a blue-print for future systematic engineering in photosynthetic microorganisms.