Pia Lindberg, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry Ångström Laboratory.
Soon we will be able to replace fossil fuels with a carbon-neutral product created from solar energy, carbon dioxide and water. Researchers at Uppsala University have successfully produced microorganisms that can efficiently produce the alcohol butanol using carbon dioxide and solar energy, without needing to use solar cells.
This has been presented in a new study published in the scientific journal Energy & Environmental Science.
We have systematically designed and created a series of modified cyanobacteria that gradually produced increasing quantities of butanol in direct processes. When the best cells are used in long-term laboratory experiments, we see levels of production that exceed levels that have been reported in existing articles. Furthermore, it is comparable with indirect processes where bacteria are fed with sugar, says Pia Lindberg, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chemistry Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University.
The knowledge and ability to modify cyanobacteria so they can produce a variety of chemicals from carbon dioxide and solar energy is emerging in parallel with advances in technology, synthetic biology, genetically changing them. Through a combination of technical development, systematic methods and the discovery that as more product removed from the cyanobacteria, the more butanol is formed, the study shows the way forward for realising the concept.
Possible to achieve higher production
We already know it is possible to produce butanol using this process (proof-of-concept). What researchers have now been able to show is that it is possible to achieve significantly higher production, so high that it becomes possible to use in production. In practical terms, butanol can be used in the automotive industry as both an environmentally friendly vehicle fuel – fourth generation biofuel – and as an environmentally friendly component of rubber for tyres. In both cases, fossil fuels are replaced by a carbon-neutral product created from solar energy, carbon dioxide and water.
Even larger industries, in all trades, that currently produce high greenhouse gas emissions from carbon dioxide will be able to use the process with cyanobacteria to bind carbon dioxide and consequently significantly reduce their emissions.
Microscopic cyanobacteria are the most efficient photosynthetic organisms on earth. In this study, we utilise their ability to efficiently capture the sun’s energy and bind to carbon dioxide in the air, alongside with all the tools we have to modify cyanobacteria to produce desirable products. The results show that a direct production of carbon-neutral chemicals and fuels from solar energy will be a possibility in the future, explains Peter Lindblad, Professor at the Department of Chemistry Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University who is leading the project.
Learn more: Solar energy becomes biofuel without solar cells
The Latest on: Modified cyanobacteria
via Google News
The Latest on: Modified cyanobacteria
- ARS Announces Winners of Innovative Challenge to Preserve Flavor of Catfishon March 3, 2021 at 5:52 am
For the last 30 years, aquaculture researchers have shown that catfish exposure to certain varieties of blue-green pond algae, also known as cyanobacteria, can cause a delay in harvest for roughly 50 ...
- Sapphire Boosts Yields from Blue-Green Algae, Signs Earthrise Dealon February 28, 2021 at 4:00 pm
In a move that extends the scope of its algal biofuel production, San Diego’s Sapphire Energy says it has modified certain cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, to produce significantly ...
- Ottawa, province chip in to help Moncton tackle blue-green algae in drinking wateron February 22, 2021 at 3:25 pm
The three levels of government will spend a combined $21.9 million to research solutions and then upgrade the city's water supply to make it capable of treating cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green ...
- Cyanobacterial Growth Optimized for Mars Promises Lifeline to Crewed Missionson February 19, 2021 at 12:00 am
The cyanobacteria grew as well as under ambient air. They then tested the combination of the modified atmosphere with regolith. Because no regolith has ever been brought from Mars, they used a ...
- Plant evolution driven by interactions with symbiotic and pathogenic microbeson February 18, 2021 at 2:33 pm
Plants and microbes have interacted through evolution in ways that shaped diversity and helped plants colonize land. Delaux and Schornack review how insights from a range of plant and algal genomes ...
- New Method for Growing Cyanobacteria in Mars-Like Conditionson February 17, 2021 at 9:35 am
The cyanobacteria grew as well as under ambient air. Then they tested the combination of the modified atmosphere with regolith. Because no regolith has ever been brought from Mars, they used a ...
- Biotech fit for the Red Planet: New method for growing cyanobacteria under Mars-like conditionson February 16, 2021 at 2:49 pm
The cyanobacteria grew as well as under ambient air. Then they tested the combination of the modified atmosphere with regolith. Because no regolith has ever been brought from Mars, they used a ...
- Staying long-term | Cyanobacteria can help astronauts survive self-sufficiently on Marson February 16, 2021 at 2:07 am
The missing nutrients for bacterial growth could be obtained locally from Martian regolith: the team showed that the cyanobacteria could grow in the modified atmosphere in water, with a simulant ...
- Biotechnology fit for the Red Planeton February 16, 2021 at 1:42 am
The cyanobacteria grew as well as under ambient air. Then they tested the combination of the modified atmosphere with regolith. Because no regolith has ever been brought from Mars, they used a ...
- Biotech fit for the Red Planeton February 16, 2021 at 12:11 am
The cyanobacteria grew as well as under ambient air. Then they tested the combination of the modified atmosphere with regolith. Because no regolith has ever been brought from Mars, they used a ...
via Bing News