Team:HAFS-Korea/Purpose

• Home
• Tour
• Project
  • Purpose
  • Description
  • Experiment
  • Safety
  • Modeling
• Expansion
  • Social Implication
  • Human Practice
• Parts
• Team
  • Introduction
  • Attribution
  • Collaboration

Purpose

Team HAFS-Korea has been searching for an applicable solution to the Food vs Fuel debate. The ineffective
distribution of edible parts of corn to the fuel industries has created a chain of
food depletion for factions of industries and livelihoods that rely on corn as a basic
necessity such as South America or Africa. Furthermore, whenever the demand for ethanol
fuel rises for reasons like the increase in petroleum price, the demand for corn-based
foods also skyrockets, which includes not only cereals or tortillas but even livestocks
like chicken and pork, because corn also provides the feed for these farm animals.
Simply put, using this new “renewable” biofuel in the current status quo which
we have to share the food supply with fuel - is not right. Fuel must be provided
with a separate source, for its explosively big demand is a problem for sure.
In finding a practical solution to this dilemma, we have tried to create a
microorganism that can produce ethanol fuel from the inedible portions of corn;
the cellulosic and hemicellulosic stems, leaves, and all the stover leftovers
outside food. This frees the food part of the Corns or Sugarcanes from being used
as fuels, and instead creates a healthy check and balance; the leftover wasted
after processing food would be recycled to make fuel. This process, most importantly,
should not involve much mechanical or energy-consuming processes, mainly because we
cannot spend 2 gallons worth of fuel to produce a gallon of biofuel. Here, through
our preliminary research, we found out that the contemporary methods of pretreatment
for cellulosic ethanols were either through acid hydrolysis, thermochemical hydrolysis,
and enzymatic hydrolysis.(Badger, P.C. 2002. Ethanol from cellulose: A general review.
p. 17–21. In: J. Janick and A. Whipkey (eds.), Trends in new crops and new uses. ASHS
Press, Alexandria, VA.) Among these, the only hydrolysis pretreatment that works
independently without requiring pressurization or high temperature is enzymatic
hydrolysis - a self-replenishing, self-controlled microorganism based system that
requires nothing but the cultured microorganism. E.coli, able to survive under bad,
stressful conditions, could best do the job - which we concluded that we need to
give the E.coli the ability to produce cellulase in order to enhance the process.
Another aspect we considered was its effectivity in the fermentation process, which
made us suspect that the bacteria’s specialty in fermentation could also enhance its
cellulase production rate. Furthermore, E.coli provides a wide range of application
in means of bioengineering, with its ease of plasmid insertion and extraction.
In short, E.coli would make the best basis for the bioengineering. Through this,
we aim to “catch two birds with one rock”; one for socio-economic innovation
and another for a debate-free renewable energy eco-friendly and easy to obtain
anywhere around the world as long as plant matters exist.