Systems Biology Towards a Continuous Platform for Biofuels Production
The goal of our project was to develop Bacillus megaterium as a host for continuous biofuel production coupled with in situ product extraction by supercritical (sc) CO2 stripping. We aimed to develop a system that utilizes supercritical CO2 (scCO2) to address challenges associated with microbial contamination, product toxicity, and product recovery that currently limit the potential of advanced biofuel and bio-based chemical production. We proposed an interdisciplinary research and development effort involving bioprocess engineering, systems biology, and chemical separation engineering, centered around a recently isolated microorganism that is tolerant to scCO2. To this end we pursued a series of Aims and Sub-Aims with the ultimate goals of 1) determining the systems physiology of B. megaterium during growth under scCO2 (Aim 1); 2) engineering heterologous butanol production pathways for anaerobic and aerobic expression in B. megaterium (Aims 1 & 2); 3) conducting de novo pathway engineering for biosynthesis of longer chain fuels (Aim 2); and 4) developing and modeling a two-phase stripping chemostat for continuous production of biofuels with in situ scCO2 extraction (Aim 3).
- Research Organization:
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER). Biological Systems Science (BSS)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0012555
- OSTI ID:
- 1576174
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-MIT-SC001255
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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