Skip to main content

New microorganism for algae biomass to produce alternative fuels

The biorefinery technology uses biomass as a feedstock and converts it to energy and other beneficial byproducts. It is drawing attention as an eco-friendly and sustainable technology to prepare for depletion of fossil fuels. However, the types of biomass that can be used for this technology are very limited. Starch crops such as corns are utilized as biomass (mainly glucose), but they are easily consumed by microorganism. Such processes have limitations in satisfying the growing demands of bioproducts, for example, the consumption of food resources and limited cultivation capabilities.
To overcome such limitations, the joint research team of POSTECH and Seoul National University developed a new microorganism, which they named as Vibrio sp. dhg. In their study, they successfully demonstrated that Vibrio sp. dhg can be a promising microbial platform for the biorefinery of brown macroalgae which can replace starch-crop biomass. 
Continuing efforts on studying utilization of non-edible biomass have been made and brown macroalgae have been suggested as an alternative feedstock. Brown macroalgae grow two to three times faster than the starch crops and only require light and seawater to grow. Although they are only consumed in a few countries such as Korea, they are not eaten in most of the countries. Because of these advantages, they seem to be a reasonable alternative choice. However, there was no industrial microorganism that can easily metabolize polysaccharides like alginic acid in algae and it was difficult to develop the process for utilizing algae as biomass.
To solve this problem, Prof. Gyoo Yeol Jung and his research team at POSTECH and Prof. Sang Woo Seo and his research group at Seoul National University successfully developed a new microorganism, Vibrio sp. dgh, that can rapidly metabolize alginic acid in algae and genetic engineering techniques optimized for this new microorganism based on omics analysis. In addition, they succeeded in developing biorefinery processes that directly produce ethanol (biofuel), 2,3-butanediol (raw material for plastics), lycopene (physiologically active substance) and other various chemical products by artificially manipulating the metabolic pathway of Vibrio sp. dhg.
Especially, the new artificial microorganism they found has many advantages and brings great expectations of its future usage. For example, Vibrio sp. dhg can not only use brown macroalgae as biomass but also other various biomass more efficiently than the conventional industrial microorganisms (E. coli, yeast). Also, their growth rate is two times faster and they convert biomass more rapidly. Therefore, it is expected to be used for improving the efficiency of microbial fermentation process using not only algae but also conventional gluose-based biomass.
Prof. Jung who led the research team explained, "The microorganism that we found, Vibrio sp. dhg can rapidly metabolize algae-derived carbon sources. So, it can be utilized in producing eco-friendly value-added chemicals. Also, it can convert raw materials to high value-added chemicals exceptionally faster than the existing industrial microorganism. Therefore, we expect that this will exceedingly improve the efficiency and economic feasibility of microbial fermentation process which has been studied globally."
Story Source:
Note: Content may be edited.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home births as safe as hospital births: International study suggests

A large international study led by McMaster University shows that low risk pregnant women who intend to give birth at home have no increased chance of the baby's perinatal or neonatal death compared to other low risk women who intend to give birth in a hospital. The results have been published by  The Lancet 's  EClinicalMedicine  journal. "More women in well-resourced countries are choosing birth at home, but concerns have persisted about their safety," said Eileen Hutton, professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at McMaster, founding director of the McMaster Midwifery Research Centre and first author of the paper. "This research clearly demonstrates the risk is no different when the birth is intended to be at home or in hospital." The study examined the safety of place of birth by reporting on the risk of death at the time of birth or within the first four weeks, and found no clinically important or statistically different risk between home...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dark matter may be older than the Big Bang

Dark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe's mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang. The study, published August 7 in  Physical Review Letters , presents a new idea of how dark matter was born and how to identify it with astronomical observations. "The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too," says Tommi Tenkanen, a postdoctoral fellow in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and the study's author. While not much is known about its origins,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scientists challenge notion of binary sexuality with naming of new plant species

A collaborative team of scientists from the US and Australia has named a new plant species from the remote Outback. Bucknell University biology postdoctoral fellow Angela McDonnell and professor Chris Martine led the description of the plant that had confounded field biologists for decades because of the unusual fluidity of its flower form. The discovery, published in the open access journal  PhytoKeys , offers a powerful example of the diversity of sexual forms found among plants. The new species of bush tomato discovered in remote Australia provides a compelling example of the fact that sexuality among Earth's living creatures is far more diverse -- and interesting -- than many people likely realize. Bucknell University postdoctoral fellow Angela McDonnell and biology professor Chris Martine led the study following an expedition last year to relocate populations of the new plant, which were first noted by Australian botanists during the 1970s. Herbarium specimens from th...
Post a Comment
Read more