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Projects

Aachen

Upcycling Methanol into an Universal Carbon Source

Nowadays, mankind uses 94 million barrels of oil per day. But as agreed on by various nations, we have to get independent from fossil resources during the next decades. Therefore not only fuels, but many other products including drugs, fine chemicals and plastic will have to be produced from renewable carbon sources. In parallel, we observe shrinking arable land per capita and more frequent droughts. But even by increasing agricultural productivity, plants will not be able to meet our massive demands. Therefore, we are developing an alternative route to sustainably produce complex carbon which significantly reduces the space and water needs. By using new synthetic pathways, we are upcycling a simple, renewable chemical into a universal carbon source.

Aalto-Helsinki

Fuel for the Future: E. coli producing renewable propane from cellulose

Climate change is argued to be one of the greatest challenges faced by mankind. Its primary cause is believed to be man-made CO2 emissions from transportation and electricity production. To tackle the issue of transportation emissions, we want to produce sustainable propane in Escherichia coli using cellulosic feedstock. The pathway is a patchwork of 10 different enzymes from different organisms, such as Mycobacterium marinum and Bacillus subtilis. We built a model of the pathway to identify its bottlenecks and concentrate our engineering efforts on them. To elevate our propane from a food crop -based first generation biofuel to the second generation, we are integrating a secretion system for cellulose hydrolysing enzymes. To innovatively enhance our production system, we are bringing the two final enzymes of our pathway into close proximity by fusing them with micelle-forming amphiphilic proteins. This increases theoretical yield, bringing us one step closer to commercially viable biopropane.