About This Project

Continued usage of petroleum-based fuels has resulted in increased amounts of pollution due to their prolonged carbon chain. We hope to solve this problem by engineering a micro-organism to improve biofuel production. Haloferax volcanii has a high tolerance for extreme salt environments and it would be ideal for a coupled pathway involving fermentation and deconstruction processes. We hope to improve the efficiency of this process and create a more sustainable method of bio-butanol production.

The red and yellow arrows represent the current carbon cycles.

The green arrows depicts the shortened carbon cycle by producing butanol from plant waste.

What is the context of this research?

Current sources of energy depend on fossil fuels, which contribute excess CO2 to the atmosphere. We can shorten the carbon cycle and stop adding to this accumulation of greenhouse gases. Biofuel will still emit CO2 but won't add new carbon into the climate. Biofuel's carbon comes from plants instead of fossil fuels. Ethanol has low energy content and water absorption compared to butanol. Butanol provides comparable amounts of energy to gasoline, can be used in current infrastructure, burns substantially cleaner, but is difficult to produce conventionally and remains expensive. Using the cellulose from food waste products like almond husks and apple cores would be a good way to cheapen the cost of production.

What is the significance of this project?

In the short term, using H.Volcanii, a robust high-salt organism, is beneficial to the future of biofuel production since it will not die post production like most other organisms, it is easier to work with pre processing, and thus creates a sustainable and carbon neutral process. Most biofuel companies spend tons of money and effort on working with more difficult organisms like The long term effect is that our work could have the effect of reducing the cost of biofuel, and stopping carbon pollution. Our project will also have the effect of reducing the world's dependance on fossil fuels.

What are the goals of the project?

We aim to engineer the halophilic archaean, H. volcanii to effectively convert organic waste into an effective biofuel.

1. H. volcanii has the possibility of building butanol using its natural fatty acid synthesis pathway. The team will be finding gene analogs from Clostridium in halophiles and inserting them into H. volcanii.
2. We will improve H. volcanii's cellulose breakdown using a modified cellulase and knocking out certain genes. The products will be used in the glucose to butanol pathway.
3. We will be looking for a new bacterial species that is capable of breaking down cellulose very well via field research in the salt flats or to a natural reserve.