Biofuel from Bacteria and Sunlight: Shewanella as an Ideal Platform for Producing Hydrocarbons
Broad Funding Opportunity Announcement Project: The University of Minnesota is developing clean-burning, liquid hydrocarbon fuels from bacteria. The University is finding ways to continuously harvest hydrocarbons from a type of bacteria called Shewanella by using a photosynthetic organism to constantly feed Shewanella the sugar it needs for energy and hydrocarbon production. The two organisms live and work together as a system. Using Shewanella to produce hydrocarbon fuels offers several advantages over traditional biofuel production methods. First, it eliminates many of the time-consuming and costly steps involved in growing plants and harvesting biomass. Second, hydrocarbon biofuels resemble current petroleum-based fuels and would therefore require few changes to the existing fuel refining and distribution infrastructure in the U.S.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E)
- OSTI ID:
- 1046604
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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