Seeking to Innovate?

Accelerate your company's innovation capacity
[CONTACT US]

INNOVATION RESOURCES

Self-Destructing Bacteria for Better Biofuels

Breakthrough:
A research team from Arizona State University has removed a major obstacle to producing lower-cost renewable biofuels. The scientists have managed to program a photosynthetic microbe to self-destruct, which makes the recovery of high energy fats and their biofuel byproducts easier. It is not as costly or as complex as current biofuel production techniques.

Business:
Arizona State University

The Story:
Self-Destructing Bacteria for Better Biofuels

Biofuel Benefits

Biofuels are promoted as a solution to depleted fossil fuel reserves, rising oil prices and as a cleaner greener alternative to petroleum. A UK government study found that biofuels reduced emissions "by 50-60% compared to fossil fuels". Currently biofuel production represents a tiny fraction of the world’s transport fuel, but investment in this multibillion dollar industry is increasing all the time.

Most biofuels are derived from plant materials or the waste they produce, but this isn’t the only option. Photosynthetic bacteria can be genetically engineered to produce a higher biofuel yield than plant crops. However, one of the drawbacks of this route is that to get the contents out of microbes involves a number of expensive processing steps.

Photosynthetic Bacteria

The Arizona State University researchers focused their attention on photosynthetic microbes called cyanobacteria. They possess tough protective outer membranes and so to obtain their biofuel goodies scientists infected bacteria with a suite of genes that could be controlled by adding trace amounts of nickel to the growth medium. The genes came from bacteria’s number one enemy, bacteriophages, which usually destroy bacteria by causing them to burst open.

In this research the scientists could control bacterial breakdown so that the microbes dissolved from the inside out, making it easy to get hold of the high-energy fats and biofuel products.

A patent has filed on the technology and a $5.2 million grant from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is funding the next stage of research to push the technology even further.

[NEXT STORY]

IdeaConnection: What Can we Solve for You?

Become a
Paid Problem Solver