C1-carbon sources for chemical and fuel production by microbial gas fermentation

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Engineering organisms for industrial fuel production

Volatile fuel costs, the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fuel security concerns are driving efforts to produce sustainable renewable fuels and chemicals. Petroleum comes from sunlight, CO(2) and water converted via a biological intermediate into fuel over a several million year timescale. It stands to reason that using biology to short-circuit this time cycle offers an attractive alternative--but only with relevant products at or below market prices. The state of the art of biological engineering over the past five years has progressed to allow for market needs to drive innovation rather than trying to adapt existing approaches to the market. This report describes two innovations using synthetic biology to dis-intermediate fuel production. LS9 is developing a means to convert biological intermediates such as cellulosic hydrolysates into drop-in hydrocarbon product replacements such as diesel. Joule Unlimited is pioneering approaches to eliminate feedstock dependency by efficiently capturing sunlight, CO(2) and water to produce fuels and chemicals. The innovations behind these companies are built with the market in mind, focused on low cost biosynthesis of existing products of the petroleum industry. Through successful deployment of technologies such as those behind LS9 and Joule Unlimited, alternative sources of petroleum products will mitigate many of the issues faced with our petroleum-based economy.     

Engineered fatty acid catabolism for fuel and chemical production

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Old obstacles and new horizons for microbial chemical production

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Combining microbial production with chemical upgrading

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Engineering microbial systems for the production and functionalization of biomaterials

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Applications of systems biology towards microbial fuel production

Harnessing the immense natural diversity of biological functions for economical production of fuel has enormous potential benefits. Inevitably, however, the native capabilities for any given organism must be modified to increase the productivity or efficiency of a biofuel bioprocess. From a broad perspective, the challenge is to sufficiently understand the details of cellular functionality to be able to prospectively predict and modify the cellular function of a microorganism. Recent advances in experimental and computational systems biology approaches can be used to better understand cellular level function and guide future experiments. With pressure to quickly develop viable, renewable biofuel processes a balance must be maintained between obtaining depth of biological knowledge and applying that knowledge.     

Cattle wastes as substrates for bioelectricity production via microbial fuel cells

A new 2 l scale microbial fuel cell (MFC) configuration was developed to generate bioelectricity from particulate substrates. Voltage and power densities generated in this MFC fed with sucrose, particulate cattle manure, and manure wash-water as the substrates were evaluated in batch mode, with and without external mediators. Voltages averaged 0.5 V in open circuit, and 0.4 V under a resistive load of 470 Ω. Power densities (67 to 215 mW/m²) were comparable to previous work that had used liquid wastes as substrates. Based on the energy yield per unit mass of feedstock (~10 kJ/kg wet manure), cattle manure has limited potential to serve as a feedstock for electricity production via MFCs.     

微生物发酵法生产聚羟基脂肪酸酯的研究进展

聚残基脂肪酸醋(Polyhydroxyalkanoates,PHAs)是一类由择基脂肪酸单体通过酯化聚合得到的高分子化合物,因具有传统石油基塑料类似的力学特征、100％生物降解性和生物相容性而被认为是最有潜力的绿色环保材料之一.受限于其高昂的生产成本,PHAs作为绿色环保材料的应用推广困难.文中分别从细胞形态调控、代谢...     

Engineering bacteria for production of sustainable polycyclopropanated jet fuel alternatives

Replacing petroleum-based fuels in high-power sectors like aviation and rocketry is a major sustainability challenge. Polycyclopropanated hydrocarbons provide excellent fuel characteristics for these applications, but their synthesis is challenging. Cruz-Morales et al. demonstrated microbial production of a range of polycyclopropanated ‘fuelimycins’ based on an unusual iterative polyketide synthase (iPKS).     

Electricity production by an overflow-type wetted-wall microbial fuel cell

An overflow-type wetted-wall MFC (WWMFC) was developed to generate a stable voltage from acetate-based substrates. The maximum power density of 18.21 W/m³ was obtained. The power generation showed a saturation-type relationship as a function of initial COD, with a maximum power density (P_max) of 18.82 W/m³ and a saturation constant (K_s) of 227.4 mg/l. Forced air flowing through the cathode chamber had a negligible effect on power generation. Influent flow rate could greatly affect the power generation. The maximum power density was increased by 72.8% when the influent flow rate increased from 5 to 30 ml/min. In addition, increasing ionic strength did not affect the power density and internal resistance. Oxygen could be restrained to diffuse into the anode chamber effectively in the overflow-type WWMFC. And the overflow-type WWMFC could be scaled up conveniently in practical application.     

Evaluation of procedures to acclimate a microbial fuel cell for electricity production

A microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a relatively new type of fixed film bioreactor for wastewater treatment, and the most effective methods for inoculation are not well understood. Various techniques to enrich electrochemically active bacteria on an electrode were therefore studied using anaerobic sewage sludge in a two-chambered MFC. With a porous carbon paper anode electrode, 8 mW/m² of power was generated within 50 h with a Coulombic efficiency (CE) of 40%. When an iron oxide-coated electrode was used, the power and the CE reached 30 mW/m² and 80%, respectively. A methanogen inhibitor (2-bromoethanesulfonate) increased the CE to 70%. Bacteria in sludge were enriched by serial transfer using a ferric iron medium, but when this enrichment was used in a MFC the power was lower (2 mW/m²) than that obtained with the original inoculum. By applying biofilm scraped from the anode of a working MFC to a new anode electrode, the maximum power was increased to 40 mW/m². When a second anode was introduced into an operating MFC the acclimation time was not reduced and the total power did not increase. These results suggest that these active inoculating techniques could increase the effectiveness of enrichment, and that start up is most successful when the biofilm is harvested from the anode of an existing MFC and applied to the new anode.     

Electricity production from xylose in fed-batch and continuous-flow microbial fuel cells

A medium-scale (0.77 l) air-cathode, brush-anode microbial fuel cell (MFC) operated in fed-batch mode using xylose (20 mM) generated a maximum power density of 13 +/- 1 W/m(3) (673 +/- 43 mW/m(2)). Xylose was rapidly removed (83.5%) within 8 h of a 60-h cycle, with 42.1% of electrons in intermediates (8.5 +/- 0.2 mM acetate, 5.9 +/- 0.01 mM ethanol, 4.3 +/- 0.1 mM formate, and 1.3 +/- 0.03 mM propionate), 9.1% captured as electricity, 16.1% in the remaining xylose, and 32.7% lost to cell storage, biomass, and other processes. The final Coulombic efficiency was 50%. At a higher initial xylose concentration (54 mM), xylose was again rapidly removed (86.9% within 24 h of a 116-h cycle), intermediates increased in concentration (18.4 +/- 0.4 mM acetate, 7.8 +/- 0.4 mM ethanol and 2.1 +/- 0.2 mM propionate), but power was lower (5.2 +/- 0.4 W/m(3)). Power was increased by operating the reactor in continuous flow mode at a hydraulic retention time of 20 h (20 +/- 1 W/m(3)), with 66 +/- 1% chemical oxygen demand removal. These results demonstrate that electricity generation is sustained over a cycle primarily by stored substrate and intermediates formed by fermentation and that the intermediates produced vary with xylose loading.     

Recent advancements in fungal-derived fuel and chemical production and commercialization

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Coupling microbial fuel cells with a membrane photobioreactor for wastewater treatment and bioenergy production

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) and membrane photobioreactors are two emerging technologies for simultaneous wastewater treatment and bioenergy production. In this study, those two technologies were coupled to form an integrated treatment system, whose performance was examined under different operating conditions. The coupled system could achieve 92–97 % removal of soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) and nearly 100 % removal of ammonia. Extending the hydraulic retention time (HRT) of the membrane photobioreactor to 3.0 days improved the production of algal biomass from 44.4 ± 23.8 to 133.7 ± 12.9 mg L^?1 (based on the volume of the treated water). When the MFCs were operated in a loop mode, their effluent (which was the influent to the algal reactor) contained nitrate and had a high pH, leading to the decreased algal production in the membrane photobioreactor. Energy analysis showed that the energy consumption was mainly due to the recirculation of the anolyte and the catholyte in the MFCs and that decreasing the recirculation rates could significantly reduce energy consumption. The energy production was dominated by indirect electricity generation from algal biomass. The highest energy production of 0.205 kWh m^?3 was obtained with the highest algal biomass production, resulting in a theoretically positive energy balance of 0.033 kWh m^?3. Those results have demonstrated that the coupled system could be an alternative approach for energy-efficient wastewater treatment and using wastewater effluent for algal production.     

Electricity production from xylose using a mediator-less microbial fuel cell

Electricity generation integrated with xylose degradation was investigated in a two-chamber mediator-less microbial fuel cell (MFC). Voltage output followed saturation kinetics as a function of xylose concentration for concentration below 9.7 mM, with a predicted maximum of 86 mV (6.3 mW m(-2) or 116 mW m(-3)) and half-saturation constant (K(s)) of 0.29 mM. Xylose concentrations from 0.5 mM to 1.5 mM resulted in coulombic efficiencies and maximum voltage ranging from 41+/-1.6% to 36+/-1.2% and 55+/-2.0 mV to 70+/-3.0 mV respectively. Xylose degradation rate increased with increasing xylose concentration up to 9.7 mM and the predicted maximum degradation rate was 0.13 mM h(-1) and K(s) of 3.0 mM. Stirring by nitrogen in the anode chamber led to 99+/-2.3 mV maximum voltage (8.4+/-0.4 mW m(-2) or 153+/-7.1 mW m(-3)) and 5.9+/-0.3% coulombic efficiency at MFC running time 180 h, which were respectively 17+/-1.2% and 37+/-1.8%, higher than those without stirring. The COD removal under stirring was 22.1+/-0.3%, which was slightly lower than that of 23.7+/-0.4% under no stirring. However, stirring resulted in 59% lower xylose degradation rate. This work demonstrates that xylose can be used in the MFC for electricity production. Comparatively higher electricity generation and coulombic efficiency can be obtained by adjusting initial xylose concentration and applying stirring in the anode chamber.     

The direct electrocatalysis of phenazine-1-carboxylic acid excreted by Pseudomonas alcaliphila under alkaline condition in microbial fuel cells

In this paper, we reported a kind of exoelectrogens, Pseudomonas alcaliphila (P. alcaliphila) strain MBR, which could excrete phenazine-1-carboxylic acid (PCA) to transfer electron under alkaline condition in microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The electrochemical activity of strain MBR and the extracellular electron transfer mechanism in MFCs were evaluated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electricity generation curve measurement. The results indicated a soluble mediator was the key factor for extracellular electron transfer of strain MBR under alkaline condition. The soluble mediator was PCA detected by gas chromatography-mass (GC-MS) analyses.     

微生物木糖代谢途径改造制备生物基化学品

当前,全球经济的高速发展与日益减少的石油资源储备进一步加剧了能源供需矛盾。人类对开发利用可再生的纤维素生物质资源寄予厚望。木糖是木质纤维素水解产物中含量仅次于葡萄糖的一种单糖,因此对木糖高效率生物转化的研究成为影响其工业化前景的关键因素之一。针对近几年的研究,文中综述了生物转化木糖方面的进展,包括木糖代谢途径的鉴定和设计、木糖运输途径的改造、生物基化学品制备。为了解决当前全球面临的能源危机与环境问题,运用合成生物学技术发展新一代生物燃料技术,特别是开发能够代谢木糖高产乙醇的微生物工程菌株是实现可持续发展的重要方式。