Researchers from the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences reported on the development of a route to improve bio-butanol production with a focus on: increasing butanol ratio in the solvent through metabolic engineering of Clostridia spp.; introducing and optimizing the butanol synthetic pathway in the species with high butanol tolerance; and overcoming the glucose repression effect to utilize low-cost non-grain based feedstocks.
In their paper published last year in the journal Sheng Wu Gong Cheng Xue Bao (Chinese journal of biotechnology), they noted that while butanol is an important chemical feedstock and is expected to become a next-generation biofuel, biological butanol production is still not economically competitive compared with petrochemical-derived butanol because of its major drawbacks: high cost of the feedstocks, low butanol concentration in the fermentation broth and the co-production of low-value byproducts acetone and ethanol.
The Shanghai group believes that, through extensive domestic and international industry-university-research cooperation, a sustainable and economically viable process for biological butanol production can be established in the near future.
Resources
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Yang, G; Yu, J; Hui, W; Xudong, L; Zhilin, L; Jian, L; Han, X; Zhaobing, S; Jingbo, Z; Yunliu, Y; Weihong, J; Sheng, Y. (2011) Current status and prospects of biobutanol manufacturing technology. Sheng Wu Gong Cheng Xue Bao (Chinese journal of biotechnology).