Dartmouth and Mascoma create a new ethanol producing bacteria
By Susan Wilson
Breakthroughs in the area of biofuel production are happening more and more these days. It’s like popcorn. When it first starts popping, the kernels pop sporadically and you can count each one. Then it hits the critical moment when it seems everything is popping at once. Well, we have reached that point with biofuel innovations.
Last Friday, I wrote about TMO Renewables genetically engineered bacteria TM242. TMO took naturally occurring bacteria that turned plant waste into lactic acid and altered it so that it produces ethanol instead.
Dartmouth and Mascoma have done something very similar in their creation of a thermophilic bacterium (it grows at high temperatures) that only produces ethanol during fermentation. In other words, a new genetically engineered bacteria has been created that can withstand the high temperatures needed for turning cellulosic biomass into ethanol and actually creates the ethanol without the addition of enzymes or yeast.
Cellulosic ethanol is the direction that most biofuel producers are heading for a number of reasons. First, the feedstock for cellulosic ethanol comes from non-food sources such as: lumber from construction waste, leftover husks and stalks from harvested crops, paper, and other sources of plant waste materials. Second, the feedstock is readily available and will free up space in landfills. Finally, using cellulosic biomass is “cost-competitive with petroleum on both an energy and a mass basis”.
The primary problem with biofuel has been the high cost of turning feedstock into ethanol. By using the thermohilic bacterium in the process, the expensive cellulase enzymes can be augmented or replaced with the new bacterium. By reducing the cost of creating cellulosic ethanol, it then becomes much more competitive with the cost of gasoline. Another plus is that ethanol can be used in most combustion engines and in the fuel cell-powered cars of the future.
The Dartmouth/Mascoma “study was published online during the week of Sept. 8, 2008 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.”
Lynd explains that this discovery is only the first step, a proof of concept, for future development of ethanol-producing microbes that can make ethanol from cellulosic biomass without adding enzymes. Lee Lynd, the Paul E. and Joan H. Queneau Distinguished Professor in Environmental Engineering Design at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth is the corresponding author on the study and the chief scientific officer and co-founder of Mascoma Corporation, a company working to develop processes to make cellulosic ethanol.
The speed with which new developments are happening means that we should see the cost of biofuel coming down. As gas continues to climb in price, having other lower cost alternatives for powering our vehicles may be the only way that many people can continue to drive their cars.
Photo by Joseph Mehling, Dartmouth ‘69
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Read more entries by Susan Wilson.
Stumble It!
September 22nd, 2008
For a source of biofuel, what about the
algae bloom occuring on Lake Erie? (Traverse City Record, Sept 21,2008). Lake Erie has been cleaned up in recent years but now the algae growth is beginning to choke it off. Why not “mine” this growth, dry it, and investigate it
for use as biofuel???