Team:Aalto-Helsinki

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

Fuel for the Future

Climate change is argued to be one of the greatest challenges faced by mankind. The current climate change is mainly caused by us humans as we have been using the Earth’s precious fossil fuel stocks without returning the emitted gases into the natural carbon cycle. According to IPCC, even if we could stop all the emissions right now, the Earth’s average temperature would rise 0.6C. This means we must act now. To fight climate change we have come up with a solution which would tackle the emissions made by the road transportation. These emissions make up a considerable 11% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Imagine if you could drive your car knowing you won’t be contributing to the climate change. The carbon footprint of transported goods would diminish. What if we lived in a world without geo-political pressure caused by the unbalanced localization of usable fuels?

Here’s our solution: we will produce sustainable propane in E. coli using cellulose as a carbon source. Propane is already common in car engines, and gasoline engines can be converted into propane engines quite simply and inexpensively. As propane is already widely used, the infrastructure to distribute propane is largely in place. But, the problem is that propane is currently produced as a side product of the petrochemical industry, hence it’s a fossil fuel. To solve this, we will transfer a propane producing pathway into E. coli. The pathway is a patchwork of different enzymes from different organisms, but has been shown to work in E. coli alone. To elevate our propane producing E. coli from a glucose-consuming first generation biofuel to the second generation, we are integrating a secretion system for cellulose hydrolysing enzymes. This way our bacteria could survive on agricultural and food waste, closing the carbon cycle without disturbing the current food production.