Reprogrammed bacterium turns carbon dioxide into chemicals on industrial scale

 

Researchers at Northwestern University,Illinois have reprogrammed the carbon-fixing bacterium Clostridium autoethanogenum, which naturally ferments carbon oxide gases for energy, resulting in ethanol as an end product. From ethanol various other chemicals can easily be made like acetone or propan-2-ol. Acetone and propan-2-ol have a combined market value of over £7.4 billion. They are widely used as industrial solvents and to make plastics, including acrylic glass and polypropylene. The C. autoethanogenum’s genome was examined for enzymes that would enable the production of acetone or isopropanol from acetyl-CoA, a common intermediate in metabolism. The genes that encode these enzymes were then introduced and tested in different strains of the bacterium to optimise production of acetone and isopropanol. This has then been tested on an industrial scale in a 120 litre loop reactor connected to a carbon dioxide waste stream from a steel plant. This process can easily be changed by swapping out the bacteria to produce other chemicals.



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