S55: Electrofuels and Protein-based biorefining: Novel strategies to produce chemicals and fuels

EASEL is pioneering creative strategies for cost-effective and sustainable generation of biofuels and bio-based chemicals. We optimize microbiology discoveries in biofuel synthesis for efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and large scale production. Among several proprietary fermentation-based platforms under development, our “electrofuel” technology integrates electrochemical formate production, biological CO2 fixation, and higher alcohol synthesis, opening the possibility of electricity-driven bioconversion of CO2 to transportation fuels or other commercial chemicals. This integrated process does not depend on biological “light reactions.” Electricity generated from photovoltaic cells, wind turbines, or off-peak grid power sources can be used to drive CO2 fixation and fuel production. Thus, this process provides a way to increase photosynthetic efficiency by coupling man-made photoelectric generation devices with biological CO2 fixation and fuel production capability. Another unique technology is to use proteins as a feedstock to achieve nitrogen neutral biofuel production. Proteins are the major component of the photosynthesis apparatus, CO2 fixation pathways and other biosynthetic and cell growth machinery. The protein based biorefining scheme can bypass the need for expensive photo-bioreactors or the lignocellulose recalcitrance problem by using protein biomass from algal cultures, waste biotreatment and the fermentation industry as a long-term, sustainable protein source. The recycled nitrogen could be used for future protein production or conventional agriculture. We applied metabolic engineering to generate Escherichia coli that can deaminate protein hydrolysates, enabling the cells to convert proteins to C4 and C5 alcohols at 56% of the theoretical yield.