Scientific outlook
In our project, we were able to show that E. coli is able to grow on methanol and to produce glycogen. The implementation of methanol into the metabolism can be improved by building the [Team:Aachen/Lab/Methanol/Monocistronic_Diversity_Library| monocystronic diversity library]
• Establish a reliable glycogen purification method to provide our glycogen for industrial processes (paper industry)
• Also we could show that the combined strain of methanol operon and the knockout of one degradation enzyme(glgP) can grow , metabolic flux is still to be optimized in order to scale-up the process.
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Possible future in 50 year:
The energy price kept dropping and renewable energy became more efficient and available.
Most of the fuels are sustainably produced by technical conversion to hydrocarbons, which are available in huge amounts.
The biotechnology and starch based industry is based on a variety of substrates, mainly wastes and glycogen produced from methanol.
The arable land that was previously used to grow energy crops is now renatured or used for food crops. The renaturing of area that was a former part of the bioeconomy, now binds a large amount of CO2 from the atmosphere which brought climate change to a halt.
With the left over arable land and improved agriculture, we are guarantee food security without an extensive use of fetilizers. The decreased use of fertilizers reduced the polluiton of rivers and oceans which lead to a more stable environment.