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A team of engineers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) recently discovered that a naturally occurring bacterium, Thermoanaerobacterium thermosaccharolyticum TG57, isolated from waste generated after harvesting mushrooms, is capable of directly converting cellulose, a plant-based material, to biobutanol.
A research team led by Associate Professor He Jianzhong from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at NUS Faculty of Engineering first discovered the novel TG57 strain in 2015. They went on to culture the strain to examine its properties.
Assoc Prof He explained, "The production of biofuels using non-food feedstocks can improve sustainability and reduce costs greatly. In our study, we demonstrated a novel method of directly converting cellulose to biobutanol using the novel TG57 strain. This is a major breakthrough in metabolic engineering and exhibits a foundational milestone in sustainable and cost-effective production of renewable biofuels and chemicals."
[...] Moving forward, the research team will continue to optimise the performance of the TG57 strain, and further engineer it to enhance biobutanol ratio and yield using molecular genetic tools.
The team published the findings of the study in the scientific journal Science Advances on 23 March 2018.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ayn Anonymous on Tuesday April 10 2018, @01:10AM
I see what's the problem.
> ...convert micro-crystalline cellulose to butanol: (i) generating butanol up to 1.93 g/liter
1.) *micro-crystalline* cellulose need a lot of energy to produce.
2.) 1.93 g/liter means you need about 500 litre micro-crystalline cellulose to produce 1 litre butanol.
Well, they need for sure work on the output ratio.