{"id":36493,"date":"2016-08-11T07:05:10","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T05:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rss.nova-institut.net\/public.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.biofuelsdigest.com%2Fbdigest%2F2016%2F08%2F01%2Fcornell-researcher-discover-cellular-strategy-to-produce-biofuel-through-microbes-feeding-on-co%2F"},"modified":"2016-08-09T12:41:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T10:41:17","slug":"biological-wizardry-ferments-carbon-monoxide-into-biofuel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/biological-wizardry-ferments-carbon-monoxide-into-biofuel\/","title":{"rendered":"Biological wizardry ferments carbon monoxide into biofuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

ITHACA, N.Y. \u2013 \u201cInstead of having the waste go to waste, you make it into something you want,\u201d said Ludmilla Aristilde, assistant professor in biological and environmental engineering. \u201cIn order to make the microbes do our work, we had to figure out how they work, their metabolism.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aristilde collaborated with her colleague Lars Angenent, professor of biological and environmental engineering, on the project. She explained, \u201cThe Angenent group had taken a waste product and turned it into a useful product.\u201d<\/p>\n

To make biofuel from inorganic, gaseous industrial rubbish, the researchers learned that the bacterium Clostridium ljungdahlii<\/em> responds thermodynamically \u2013 rather than genetically \u2013 in the process of tuning favorable enzymatic reactions.<\/p>\n

Synthetic gas \u2013 or syngas \u2013 fermentation is emerging as a key biotechnological solution, as industrial-sized operations are looking to produce ethanol from their gaseous waste streams, according to Angenent, a fellow at Cornell\u2019s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. The scientists sought to grasp the physiological nature of the process: \u201cThese findings are important for the syngas fermentation community to design future strategies to improve production,\u201d Angenent said.<\/p>\n

The scientists found the microbe feasts on and then ferments carbon monoxide. \u201cWhen I eat food, I get energy out of my food by metabolizing my food,\u201d Aristilde said, an Atkinson fellow. \u201cMicrobes are the same. In terms of biostructure, the bacterial cells are starving for nutrients, so they are responding metabolically \u2013 which leads to a desired outcome, ethanol production.\u201d<\/p>\n

To get the microbe to ferment the carbon monoxide, scientists \u201cbubble it in the growth medium solution,\u201d explains Angenent, where the cells can feed on it. Angenent said carbon monoxide gas emitted as a byproduct of heavy industries \u2013 such as the process for coking coal in the production of steel \u2013 can potentially be channeled to bioreactors that contain these bacterial cells.<\/p>\n

Said Aristilde: \u201cThe microbial cells then turn it into ethanol, an organic molecule. And carbon monoxide, an inorganic molecule, turns into something valuable we can use. That\u2019s what makes this special.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study, \u201cEthanol Production in Syngas-Fermenting Clostridium ljungdahlii<\/em> Is Controlled by Thermodynamics Rather Than by Enzyme Expression,\u201d was published in the May 2016 issue of Energy and Environmental Science and was funded by the National Science Foundation, the German Research Foundation, philanthropist Yossie Hollander and the Foundation des Fondateurs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ITHACA, N.Y. \u2013 \u201cInstead of having the waste go to waste, you make it into something you want,\u201d said Ludmilla Aristilde, assistant professor in biological and environmental engineering. \u201cIn order to make the microbes do our work, we had to figure out how they work, their metabolism.\u201d Aristilde collaborated with her colleague Lars Angenent, professor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5817],"supplier":[1166],"class_list":["post-36493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-research","supplier-cornell-university-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36493"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=36493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}