Asheville, NC-based Phytonix Corporation, founded in 2009 to produce cost-effective biofuels, has licensed technology for the direct production of biobutanol by photosynthetic bacteria.
The license was purchased from an scientist from Cornell/Johns Hopkins, and who worked for many years at DOE Oakridge National Laboratory. The license covers several inventions, including the molecular biology and genomics technology for designing/engineering the photobiological/photosynthetic biofuels producing organisms, and designing in biosafety guards (i.e. suicide genes).
—Bruce Dannenberg, Founder and CEO of Phytonix
Phytonix is partnering with a European university laboratory to create the bio-safe bacteria that will produce the biobutanol, Dannenberg said, and will be patenting those specific organisms separately.
Phytonix has patents pending worldwide for the process technologies that will create the bacteria and that will prevent the bacteria from surviving if they get into the natural environment.
Dannenberg will share additional information on the company’s technology at the World Biofuels Markets Congress 2011 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, late in March. Mr. Dannenberg will present at the conference’s Advanced Biofuels Session and will participate as a panelist.