Researchers finds bacteria to make biodiesel

The Biofuel start-up LS9 and some of  the California researchers claimed a success in converting non-food biomass into biodiesel using a genetically modified form of e. coli bacteria.

This research done by the fellows of University of California at Berkeley and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), looks like a huge success to a step toward lowering the cost of making biodiesel from chips, corn stover, wood and some other residual agricultural products. The group published its results in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

A diagram of LS9's one-step process for converting biomass into diesel fuel.

(Credit: LS9)

LS9 is one of a handful of U.S. synthetic biology companies that are trying to manipulate the microorganisms to convert plants into liquid fuels or plastics.

Upcoming plans from LS9 next week, would follow with the announcement of the planned location of a demonstration facility in the U.S. to convert the sugar cane into biodiesel using an existing organism, said Stephen del Cardayre, the vice president of research and development at the company. He said that the plant, which will use an existing microorganism, will open this summer and pave the way for large-scale manufacturing and sales in 2012, he said.

LS9's research with the University of California and the Department of Energy also has a clear focus on a single-step biorefinery process. But researchers tuned another strain of e. coli that can work with different feedstocks, such as straw or wood. Those cellulosic feedstocks are typically harder to convert into fuel through fermentation than sugar cane or corn, but offer the potential of lower overall greenhouse gas emissions.

Del Cardayre saide that this second-generation process would still take "a few years" to develop further. But since it avoids costly pretreatment processes, it gives a huge promise to lower the cost of production. "This demonstrates for the first time that you can engineer e. coli to leverage complex biomass feedstocks and convert them into advanced biofuels, which is how you connect the dots to lower cost," he said.

Source: news.cnet.com